This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. It has always been my pleasure to be here for the last Oh my gosh, are we almost at nine years? If you're new to my show, I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor and not
a therapist. I teach at cal State Channel Islands. I've written three books on relationships, though, and wrote a dissertation on attachment theory, because well, I am totally obsessed with the science of love. I really think it's the whole reason why we're alive, to find mates, to keep mates, to expel, you know, low performing mates, if you will. And I'm also here to pull anybody off the guilt train who has had so called failed relationships. I do not believe there is any such thing as a failed
relationship. Now. I know, if you've been to the wedding and you spend a bunch of money on the present, you want to call it a failed relationship. I say, you know what, it was just a risky investment. That's all. It was. Listen until death do us part was invented, death was pretty imminent, and so even the most monogamous of human
beings may have a few monogamous relationships in their lifespan. And also, anthropologists would say that we have the widest range of sexual behavior of any primate species. So there you go. I'm just starting the show by saying you're normal, and in today's show you're going to hear about the different ways that people can have healthy relationships. Like it may not all be bad news if you're sleeping in separate beds. It may not be bad news if you're arguing.
And also, ladies, seriously, later in the show, I want us to talk just you know, man, you can just turn off the show when we get there. But ladies, listen. We are going to talk about male sexual psychology because men fall in love very differently than women do. If you follow me on my social media, and I suggest you do, the handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I think the video that's got the most views on TikTok is like five million views and it's called men don't fall
in love through sex? So how do they fall in love through trust? How do you showcase that. We're going to talk about that. But first, if you've been listening to my show for a while, you're going to have this fabulous boyfriend Hu Leo, who I love dearly. Well, this week we had a little tiff. It was small, wasn't a big fight. It lasted maybe ten minutes, but it got my head all spinny, and I went into what I usually do, the research files. I went
to the stacks. Now I went to the Internet. I went to Google. I know. I started thinking about all the ways the people can get back to love, get back to caring about each other after they've had a little fight. And before I give you some strategies that I read about that I'm happy to report on, I want to tell you the research on conflict in relationships. First of all, the healthiest relationships have the most frequent conflict.
Yeah, that's what I said. The people who have the healthiest relationships actually argue the most often. Now hold that thought, because you know, I'm going to clarify what they don't have are knocked down, drag them out irreparable painful fights that never get resolved, and the anger lingers forever what they have our little border skirmishes all day long, just like re executing their breas. In fact, I noticed Julio and I like to argue a lot in
public in a very playful way. It's almost a performance. You know. We'll be at the cash register at Trader Joe's and he's like, oh, you're buying that healthy stuff. You think I'm gonna eat that, And I go, oh, no, you have to. It's good for your health. You needed it. And we start into this funny, cute little argument as entertainment for the cashier, and they laugh every time because he's very funny. And so that's one of our strategies to kind of negotiate things. We
do it with humor. But anyway, this little tiff, it doesn't matter what it was about. It was a little tiff. It made me think, like, how do I get back to love? I noticed in the middle of the tiff that I got up off the sofa. We were sitting together on the sofa, and I went over to the dining room table and I started packing my purse with things we lived together. Okay, like, where am I going what am I putting in my bag? It was like this weird automatic. I gotta get out of here. I have this running
feeling. And the good news is that during that moment, he stood up and came over to me and put his hand on my shoulders. So I want to say this touch. That's the first thing I want to say. You want to get back to love after And I don't mean it has to be makeup sex, but just touch, get connected. Your body emits dopamine and oxytocin the bonding hormone touch immediately after a little disagreement. But I do want to say this. We all deal with conflict differently. We learned it
from our family of origin. If your partner needs some space, let them have a little space. Now, the partner that needs the space has to learn to say, I want to talk about this. I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. Can we talk about it in an hour or can we talk about it tomorrow. I promise I'm going to revisit this. This is all too much for me. You avoiding people who run away during conflict need to learn
how to say those words, because that calms down the anxious person. Otherwise, dudes, you go into your cave, is going to be throwing grenades in that cave. Okay, so she will feel more abandoned and more triggered and chase after you. Now, the anxious one, just relax, take a deep breath, focus on containing yourself. The other bit of advice I
have after a little tiff is don't have an all or nothing mentality. Don't be like, Okay, well we had a fight, it must be over because if your brain starts to go down that rabbit's hole, you know, life is a self fulfilling prophecy. Trust me. So don't have that idea that because you're fighting, therefore this is the beginning of the end. You know. I've heard people say it's a sign, this must be a sign.
No, it's a conflict. And it's really important during conflict that you don't lose sight of who you're with, and that's the person you love. And my final bit of advice while I talk about I just talked about giving someone space, give someone the cold shoulder, never give someone the silent treatment,
never shut them out. This is a prescription for a breakup. As I've always said, and I'll say it again, the partner who is dismissed will eventually find somebody who listens, and that person will be a lover or a lawyer. Trust me. So it's really important that you schedule time to work with it. In fact, if you're afraid of intimacy, if you're afraid to talk about these tender things. A little later in the show, I want to talk specifically to you, there are some strategies that you can
use to start to learn to be a little more intimate. Oh one other thing, stop providing excuses and rational rationally and well you made me do it well because I had to stop it. Just say you're sorry. Okay, I think I'm sorry are two of the most powerful words that ever come up in any relationship. All Right, we have to go to break when we come back. Are you too sleeping in separate beds? Do you feel bad about this? I've got some news for you. You might be okay,
you might be onto something. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. Welcome back, to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You are listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. And I'm about to admit something to you, something I'm a little embarrassed about.
Okay, I came by it completely, honestly. I snore. I got it from my parents. Look, when I was a kid, I used to get scared at night. I didn't know I had childhood anxiety. We have a name for these things. Now we get it treated. But you know me, I was just scared of the dark, scared of everything, scared and I whatever, and I would go and crawl in my parents' bed. Well, I was more terrified of the thundering sound coming out of my mother. In fact, my boyfriend Julio says, how can such a sweet,
feminine woman have that rumbling come out of her. I've never heard myself snore. I will tell you this, I don't know it exists. Julio keeps saying, I'm gonna tape it sometime and let you hear it. But I would be mortified. Well, recently, I had a routine and a scopy, and when I came up out of an esthetic. Love that propival. The doctor says, wow, I bet you snore a lot. How would she know? By looking down my throat, She said, there's a
bunch of scar tissue on my esophagus. Apparently I have at acid reflux with no symptoms, no symptoms at all except snoring bothers everybody else, but not me. So she said, I'm gonna give you this little medication and see if it'll calm down the inflammation. So I've been doing it, taking it for a few weeks now, Julio says, I'm snoring less. Oh amazing. Could change our lives. This thing. Who knew, right, It wasn't It's not my nose, it's not my sinuses, it's my esophagus.
That's why it sounds like it's coming down from my chest, this rumble, this thunder. Anyway, I digress. This is a long personal story to tell you that I would totally understand if Julio said to me, luck, I can't sleep, I need to sleep in another room. I would be a little hurt. Of course, I'd be embarrassed, ashamed because it's the thing going on with me. But I didn't invent this. I inherited it. Okay. So a new study came out that shows that nearly a third
of married Americans sleep in separate beds. Some people call it the Great American sleep divorce. Actually, forty three percent of millennials. Huh. You see as you get older, thirty three percent of Gen X and Gen Z twenty two Gen Z are you even getting married yet? What the heck aren't you babies X Y Z. I don't know. I think you're my college students. I get it. So I do want to say this that let's think about if you're judging these people who are sleeping separately, I want you to
ask yourself what are you judging them for. Are you saying, oh, this is a slippery slope, this is on the way to divorce, this is a kind of separation. Or are you thinking, oh, their sex life must be over. Or are you thinking, oh, this is just a way to stay in the house but be completely undivorced and live separately. All those things you know could be completely wrong. In fact, there's a
chance that none of them are right at all. The truth is that there are plenty of ways to have a healthy and happy relationship, but the most important thing is you find other way to connect. So let me go through some of my ideas of how people can connect if for all kinds of reasons, health, reason, asleep. Look, I lived for a bunch of years with a guy who was a total night person, and he got the most work done in the middle of the night. I spent years angry with
him. I felt abandoned, I felt lonely. I didn't understand what was going on. I thought he was throwing himself into his work at two in the morning or three in the morning because he just didn't want to be near me. Right, Imagine if we had stopped and talked about it, and talked about what was really going on. I'm a morning person, he's a night person. I go to bed nine ten o'clock on the outside. He's up early, and so as a result, we had different sleep schedules.
But imagine if we could have talked about it instead of just this old silent treatment. So here a few tips. If you are undergoing a sleep divorce, I hate that name. We shouldn't call it a sleep divorce. If you are sleeping in separate beds, here's my advice in order to sort of keep the connection just because you don't sleep together doesn't mean you can't start out
in the same bed. There's all kinds of things you could do, whether you're reading together, watching TV together, cuddling, having sex, whatever. There's no reason that the two of you shouldn't start out together. That's the first thing I want to say. Also, do visit each other's beds.
And also, when I go back to that research study that I talked about it and it was done by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine sleep Medicine, here's what we know that a couple where one or both partners are deprived of sleep are going to naturally have more conflict anyway. This is the thing that breaks people up so much because everybody's just overtired. And when you're overtired, you don't have the patience to deal with your partner. So that makes a
good case for sleeping separately. If a partner snores or they're up all night. There's some people I won't say who, but they tend to be okay, all my friends, menopuzzle women, They drink a little wine, they go to bed. Alcohol, as you know, puts you down. But what does it do after that? It brings you up, so then they're up all night. They're up and down and up and down, and don't
even talk to me about the hot flashes. So if you're like that and it really disturbs your husband because you're up and down all night, then it might make sense to sleep in separate rooms at least some of the time.
Okay, here's another technique that I know that some couples do. During the week when they've got to get up, they got to go to work, there's kids to take care of their stuff happening, they may sleep in separate beds, but on the weekend it's a couple time, so they force it through because they can catch up on the sleep they can sleep in in the morning. That's another great technique, all right. Also, make sure you
get the touch. The touch I always talk about it. Don't night the dopamine, oxytocin, the serotonin, all those wonderful neural hormones, the stuff that keeps you close and bonded. You get that through touch. So if you're not sleeping together, you're going to have to touch more during the day, hold hands, hug, do whatever you need to. Above all, don't think that this is the beginning of the end. Have discussions about it
and what it means. As I said, I lived with a guy for years and we never talked about it, and I was busy feeling abandoned. He was just a night owl. He got his best work done at two in the morning, right, so we could have had the conversation. So, no matter what, talk about it. Know that you're not crazy. If you're a millennial or older. Apparently forty three percent of you are sleeping in separate beds, so it's normal. But you have to make up for
the lost time. You have to make up for the lost touch, the lost connection. You have to find ways to stay connected. I know now, you know, you know I snore? Well, it's you know, what can I do? My mother rattled? I rattle? What can I What can I say? When we come back? I want to talk a little bit about man. I love to talk about men. Women love to
talk about men. Half of our life is spent talking about man. But I want to talk about the very different male sexual psychology that men have compared to women, and also how men fall in love because ladies, they fall in love very differently than we do. I'll explain when we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from kf I AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, for a very long time, men have wondered what it is that women want, how women think, why women are the way they are. We are certainly more emotionally astute than you guys, not to say that there are not very sensitive, very emotionally mature, insightful, emotionally intelligent men out there. But as an overall gender, oh, I should
stop right here and talk a little bit about gender, shall we. Gender is a spectrum, but biological sex is one two or three things, which is male x Y, female x X and intersex where you might have some combination. How your gender expresses is partly biological and of course partly social. However, for the purpose of this conversation, let's talk about heterosexual male and
female relationships and biological males and biological females. So there's a lot of work on done by the evolutionary psychologist doctor David Buss at the University of Texas. I think he wrote a book, a really great book with doctor Cindy Meston call Why Women Have Sex Right, And there were like three hundred different reasons why women have sex. Men, as it turns out, are much more
simpler. It's more like whatever their regular thing is, whether it's once a day, once a month, or once a year, it's a pipe cleaning basically. So no, I know, guys, you're much more complicated than that. But when it comes to love, romantic love, I want to say that men and women are distinctly different, both in the way and the pace and the things that trigger them to fall into romantic love. Let me
first refer back to the work of doctor David Buss. Now, one of his most famous studies was done on ten thousand people in thirty three countries. When you hear that, you should hear oh. That's called cross cultural research, which means that you can't say culture implanted this in people. It's a human thing if it's happening in thirty three countries. He asked a psychologist and others to collect data and basically ask men what are you most attracted to in
women? And also ask women what are you most attracted to in men? Well, the female answers probably aren't surprising to you. They're very stereotypical, and stereotypes exist for a reason because they're common. So, first, as
men look or women look for resources. Again, back in our anthropological past and even today, the burden of bearing children, the burden of breastfeeding children, the burden of raising children often falls largely on females, and during that time, they need to figure out if there's going to be somebody who's going to invest in this relationship and help them with this job. Right, So they look for resource potential. But right behind that they look for intelligence.
Now, our hunter, gather ancestor women would think, well, what if there was a harsh winter, What if we ran through all the fruit in this orchard and we had to move on? Do I have a guy that's smart enough to figure out how to extract act resources from the environment, how to get us food and shelter and fire and clothing and all the things that we need. In today's times, we might say, well, if my
dude lost his job. Is he also qualified to do something else? Or if there's a great recession or a pandemic, is he going to be smart enough to pivot? You see, they look for intelligence. By the way, guys, you know how you showcase intelligence to women. Humor is a good one. People who are funny tend to be very smart because all the layers to read the room and figure out the references and be quick and all
that. So number one resources, that's what women look for. Number two intelligence, Number three kindness because at the end of the day, if you marry a guy who's rich and really smart, but he's a domestic violence of endor or an evil person, you know, you look for a kindness. So when those same researchers asked me, ask men what they look for in women, and the story was very different. First of all, you're not surprised ladies to hear this. Men need to be attracted. They need to
be physically attracted to a woman. Now, I want to remind you there's somebody for everybody, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But youth and beauty are the number one things that men look for. Why did I throw in youth there? Because their brains are wired to reproduce, and they want somebody with young eggs. Now you're saying, but wait to say.
They've already had their kids, they're divorce, they're in the forty they're not looking to reproduce, okay, but they have an ancient brain that's still triggered by old fashioned thoughts. So they're good. Let's say they want a day to peer, and peers are attracted to peers across the lifespan. So they're forty or fifty or sixty, and they want to marry somebody who's forty or fifty or sixty, they're still going to look for the youngest, prettiest
version of that. That's how it just goes right. So men look for looks, and then behind that, and this is where I want you to listen closely, ladies, they look for loyalty because back in our anthropological past, if a man was able to date a supermodel. I don't know if they had supermodels when we were hunters and gathers, but anyway, a good looking woman, if he was able to date that woman, he risked her sharing her eggs with the rest of the tribe. Other dudes who would move
in mate poachers, and then he would be cut colded. He would actually be left raising another man's genes and his own genes fell out of evolution's chain. If you think the sexual double standard that exists today was invented by patriarchy, you are so wrong. It's hardwired in men's genes. Is that the man who evolved to go who's she with, where's she going, what's happening?
You know, will shoot his genes into the future and not end up raising another I know now we have paternity tests whatever they didn't have that then. Anyway. The third thing men look for is kindness I hope again, it doesn't matter if he ends up with a supermodel who's stuck to him like glue. If she's awful to live with, not a good thing. So I want, ladies. If you're thinking about why men fall in love or how they fall in love, to stop it with the Instagram filters, stop
it with all about the youth and beauty. Focus on the other things, loyalty and kindness. Because research shows that and this research is by Helen Fisher at the Kinsey Institute, that men actually fall in love faster than women do, and men will say I love you faster. Okay, I said it first with Julio and I, but generally if women can just keep their mouths zipped, because sometimes women say it to try to draw him in to see if he's going to say it right. But men will fall in love quicker.
But they fall in love yes, first for a little bit of tractionists, but then they want to have a best friend who's loyal to them, who has their back, somebody that they feel good around. And I know there are women out there saying, I don't want to have to laugh at your jokes if they're not funny. I don't want to have to make you feel like the king and the man. Okay, then don't in a relationship,
because you know what a relationship is. It's an exchange of care, and we're both supposed to have each other's back, we're both supposed to make each other feel good. And so ladies, I want to say this, don't be competitive with men on dates. I know you're saying, oh, your sounds terrible like the nineteen fifties. Look, if you're in your reproductive window and you have made a choice not to be a single mother, and you'd like somebody who invests in your family. Then be his biggest fan,
be his loyal supporter. It is possible also to showcase loyalty by just talking about your commitment to your job, your family, your pets, your charity work, whatever. He'll see that. I remember one guy, and he was a total playboy. You never stopped long enough for me, But at one point he did say to me, I want to keep you around because you seem solid, like you have purpose, and I think he was saying like the loyalty thing. Anyway, he couldn't keep me around because he was
busy dating too many other women. So I had to move on. Oh my goodness, but how time goes by. We have to go to break Now when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about emotional intimacy. It's something I talk about a lot, and I know a lot of people are afraid of it, partly because they just weren't schooled. Their family of origin never gave them language for feelings. They don't know how to bring up those prickly topics. Maybe they're not even aware of some of their
own feelings. Let's talk about how to be more intimate. When we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Just reminder, if you'd like to follow me on my social media, you certainly may. The handle everywhere is at that's at at
sign Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh. You know, I want to talk about intimacy. I want to talk about emotional intimacy. It's so funny that people use the term intimacy to refer to sexual intimacy, when actually it means psychological, it means emotional, it means social. In some ways,
I learned how to be intimate. I had parents who were loving with boundaries, meaning that when I was growing up, if there were emotions that were not welcome, we were told, go to your room, come back when you've changed your attitude, instead of helping us process what we were experiencing. So we were as children denied. And this may sound like you and your upbringing denied language. We weren't given language for all the feelings out there.
The good news about my mom is that she was actually very good when we were sick, So there was a lot of loving and nurturing and care in that sense. And I also remembers crying and having her say, you know, sometimes, honey, you just need to have a good cry. Or come here, let me give you a hug while you have a good cry.
So there was certain feelings that were allowed, but plenty of other times it was like, you know, cheer up, change your attitude, right, so, or the worst that parents will say, I've heard this all the time. Oh, they just want attention. Yeah, that's what kids want and deserve attention. So anyway, if you come up in life, and also if your parents fought behind closed doors and you never saw a healthy conflict or healthy repair afterwards, you might be terrified of intimacy because it is
the unknown. Now. I also had a kind of an anxious attachment style, so I was like always fearing abandonment and craving intimacy. But here's the catch. When it was actually presented to me, then I didn't know what to do, and I ran away from it so I would be attracted to people who couldn't love me back. I was attracted people who couldn't give me
emotional intimacy because my state of love was a state of longing. It was a state of wanting to feel loved and always being attracted to the wrong people. One of the reasons why in my if you could call it a media brand and whatever it is, the books that I write and the podcasts I
make in the radio show I do. One of the reasons why I focus so much on red flags and choosing well at the very beginning, because sometimes we could unconsciously be choosing somebody who would actually trigger some of our early childhood stuff. And so if we just go about it blindly without a flashlight, will stay in our state of whatever it is longing or fear of intimacy. But if we can make different choices at the beginning, sometimes intimacy can be
modeled for us. If we happen to choose somebody who as a secure attachment style, who's open and honest, and we can stick with it, then that gets modeled for us, and then we can learn how to become intimate. In my case, I learned intimacy through therapy. Right, there's no more intimate relationship than in the therapist's office. I got to practice putting words on my feelings and expressing them in certain ways. But anyway, I also
meet a lot of people who are just somehow terrified of getting close. But they want to, and they don't know how, and they're terrified of all kinds of Like, come on, we're human beings, terrified of rejection, terrified that if they do express their true, authentic selves that that person will leave them or mock them, or you get defensive. So I want to go through some of the ways we can all learn to become a little more intimate. And the first way is to simply become more aware of your own
feelings. Literally, start to journal, start to write down words for feelings. Look them up on the internet if you have to. Most people have a very limited vocabulary for feelings. It's like I feel happy, sad, angry, pissed off. I mean, that's it, right, when there are a plethora of emotions that you might want to practice saying like I feel a little ashamed about this, but I want to share this, or I feel grateful or I feel joyful or I feel apprehensive. There are many,
many, dozens and dozens and dozens of words for feelings. If you google it, you can find them. But practice using them, right, that's the thing, And practice just becoming aware of them inside yourself, because the first step to intimacy is knowing yourself and knowing your feelings. Remember, feelings aren't dangerous, and we all have a rainbow of feelings inside of us at
any given time. What there are is messengers. They're a messenger that basically tells us that something's not right or something's very right, and so we just pay attention to those messengers. You know, we have to learn to get close to people, and in order to do that, we have to take emotional risks. My best advice is to do it carefully and gently and choose your targets well. Choose somebody who has empathy, who seems to be an
understanding person, and then test the water with small disclosures. Right. It's not like you have to be emotionally intimate with every single person in your life. But in order to learn how to be emotionally intimate with a romantic partner,
you've got to practice it with a few other people as well. You know, it's really important that while we're learning how to be close, that we also understand the reason for it, and that is the feeling of security when you do have trust and indeed a commitment from somebody else, it's like somebody else has your back and you don't live in fear anymore. So hard for me to explain this until I experienced the transformation myself, and again it
took years and years and years. I personally think that not only therapy, but having such a secure attachment with my children helped me learn how to be intimate. As they were expressing their feelings, I was giving them language for that and learning about myself at the same time. But eventually I got to a place where I could communicate my feelings and not fear that I would be abandoned because I found a partner who had a secure attachment style who could also
talk about their feelings. Now, nobody's perfect, and we do have times where we're trying to be a feeling detective with each other, like what's really going on here? What are you feeling? And it does take time, but if you've been afraid to be real and authentic, I want you to take a chance, because taking small chances are the stepping stones to moving forward.
I would say somebody who is learning how to be more intimate, the area that they need to learn to express the most actually isn't the love you happy part. It's when conflict comes up right. So many people are so afraid of handling conflict correctly that they run away or they just give someone the cold shoulder or the silent treatment. And that is the real lesson to learn.
To learn how to say, hey, I feel this when you did that it hurt me in this way, or when somebody's criticizing a behavior you did, being able to say I'm sorry, I didn't know that that was going to hurt you. Tell me more about what you're experiencing. I think that I this is my personal opinion that people who are afraid of intimacy, what goes hand in hand with that is low self esteem, a feeling I won't be loved, I won't be liked if I continue, if I tell
them the real me in some way anyway I want you to know. But if you take the risk, it's well worth it. I love the place that I'm in right now. Look I can be intimate with thousands of people on the radio and it's all okay, all right. When we come back, I am going to go to social media and I am going to be answering some of your questions with my drive by Makeshift Relationship Advice. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh 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 on demand on the iHeartRadio app.