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 KFI AM six forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'd like to welcome my TikTok audience who are here watching. You are in the studio of iHeartRadio in Los Angeles, California, and we are talking love relationships, but particularly ones that get talked about a lot on the internet,
which are trauma bonds. Now, let me explain what a real trauma bond is, because the Internet likes to just make up things. It is where somebody has suffered some major childhood trauma and then they find a partner who triggers the same feelings in them. They got to understand that as a survival reflex, every baby will stay attached to its caregiver for its own vitality to stay alive, right, and when that caregiver treats them badly there, I
mean, what's a toddler going to do. Go catch a lift somewhere and go find new parents. Like, it's not going to happen right. So, as a result, as their brain develops, their model for love becomes mixed with pain. Then they go out into the adult romantic world and they meet these really nice, loving people who are They're like you, I'm not attracted to them. I don't know why. I'm just you know, the chemistry is not there, or they're too nice, they say all those things.
Then they meet someone who triggers them in some way and they call that love. That's what a trauma bond is. A trauma bond is when you mix pain and love and you want to leave and you can't, and you hate the pain, but you're addicted to the love part. The roller coaster relationship. Now, I came to this knowledge from my own personal experience. When I was a youngish woman. I had a relationship for almost a decade,
on and off and on and off. I'd do all those tricks to try to get rid of them, block them, change my phone number, whatever, and then he'd always find a way to come back around again. He just had this ability to draw me in. But it's not about him. He wasn't doing anything bad. It was about my lack of boundaries, and it was about what he evoked in me from something with my childhood.
And you know, I think if you've been following me long enough and listening to my show, as you know that I had a dad who was in the navy, and he was gone most of the time, and as a result, my model for love got mixed up with feelings of longing. So when this bad boy would come on strong, we'd have a fabulous night and then disappear for three weeks. It was like my dad's ship going out to see it must have been real love, and I longed and waited. So
when do you know it's time to see a therapist about your relationship? When do you know specifically that you should research and try to find a therapist who specializes in trauma. Because here's the thing, Like, when I first went to therapy, I was talking about my relationship right, well, he said this, and he did this, and why how can I do this? And what if I do this, will he do that? My brain was focused on the current situation, but my very intelligent, talented therapist was listening
and saying things like what does this remind you of? What does this remind you of? Anything that happened earlier? In your life, etc. Trying to help me make the connection from my adult feelings to my childhood trauma.
Right, So a good therapist can do this. So how do you know whether you're just having a bad relationship and you should just break up and you can and you have the ability too because you have enough self esteem, or whether this relationship is an important messenger for you, a messenger that it's time for change. It's time for you to have some deep internal change working with a licensed therapist. So ask yourself these questions. Do you find yourself rationalizing
your partner's bad behavior. Oh, I was so good at that. Literally, he would go my playboy, bad boy, come and go, object, object to my anxious attachment. Lucky guy, poor guy. I feel bad for him now because he didn't know what he walked into. He would go on a business shrip and people would be like, you haven't heard from him for a week, And I'd be like, you know, he's really busy when he's working, when he's traveling, and with the time change and
everything, and you know, my phone's probably not working as well. I would come up with a million rationalizations. And if you have a highly intelligent brain, you're going to actually rationalize more. You know what somebody said to me recently, I think it was in my Patreon zoom room on Wednesday. They said, how could you such a SMA art woman? You know, not just walk away? How could you not know? And I reminded him
that the emotional brain and the intellectual brain are two completely different things. And guess which one is more powerful? The emotional brain It will override every time. So my rationalizations to protect him were fueled by my emotional brain, who just wanted to keep him, reel him in, have contact in some way. Okay, so let's say you're not with them because you've broken up, and you're saying he's bad for me. What are you still thinking about him
all the time? Oh? I used to do that. I used to dream about him all the time, sometimes nightmares. Sometimes I was hurting him. Hey it's a happy Catharsis, That's what that is. But yeah, it was constantly a weird obsession for me. M here's another big one. Now. You know that real love, true love is the verb to give. Right, if you're in a secure relationship, the both of you should be giving to each other, not counting and keeping score, but giving to
each other. And so when you're in a traumatic bond, here's a sneaky little way that you pretend it's real love. You become a big caregiver of them. It's like, what can I do for them to make them happy? But what you're really thinking is how can I be super nice so they won't leave me, they'll keep me? And the little things I did, the cute notes, sent, the errands I ran, the gifts I sent you know, it was crazy. So if you're finding that, you're always
asking yourself what are ways I can help them? Or another thing I was good at? How can I be a cheerleader? How can I cheer them up? I can make them happy and they feel happy around me than they want to stay near me. Right, here's another one. Do your friends and family hate them? This is a big sign because they're not trapped in love's delusion like you are. I would listen to the people around you if
they say he's a bad guy. And of course I mean. I had a bunch of girlfriends circle met one point I was in a relationship and they said they thought they were planning a baby show. I thought they were planning a baby shower for me, and then they sat around and said, this is not a baby shower planning meeting, this is an intervention. You need to leave him. I'm like, I got his baby in my summach, I'm not going anywhere. Like it was so rough. But I should have
listened to them. I should have listened to them. Do you cover for your partner's unhealthy behavior? Are you always making excuses about them? Do you get defensive with other people when they criticize him? All of these are signs that you might be in a trauma bond and should seek out a professional license therapist who understands trauma. Now, how do you do that? You can always start with your primary caregiver and they have a roster of people they refer
people to. Also, call your insurance see what they cover. Go online see what they cover. The American Psychology Association the APA has a therapist locator online. I think you just put in your zip code and you can find if you have a university near you that has a PhD program in psychology. They have a counseling center that's very affordable. Reach out there. Ask your
friends for referrals, but it's probably time. Also, if you are planning to leave a trauma bond, it might be important that you make a safety plan because guess what, that person that you're in a trauma bond with likes the situation, they like the way it's working, and they're not going to be happy when you leave. So figure out if you're going to hide another cell phone somewhere, which friends you're going to reach out to for support.
Identify safe friends or family you can stay with. Make sure you've got money where it needs to be that you can grab it quickly. Reach out to local support organizations, including the hotline, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, who has people on call twenty four hours a day, who even deal with emotional abuse. Okay, it's really important, all right. When we come back,
I am going to be taking your calls. If you would like to be part of my drive by makeshift relationship advice based on lots of life wisdom, I'm happy to weigh in well. I've also written three books on relationships and did a dissertation on attachment theory. So if you like to give us a call, the number is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. Give us a call and I will weigh in on your love life. You are listening to
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show at 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. K f I Am six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'd like to welcome my Instagram audience. Hey guys, how are you. You are live in
the iHeartRadio studios in Burbank, California. It's always fun because on the commercial break when I go live on social media, I'm always asking people like tell me where you are, tell me where you are. And it's amazing, like so many time zones around the world. We have people from Malaysia and Romania and you know, thirty different states. It's always wonderful and of course lots of local people too, which is great. Um, So if you
like to call in with a relationship question, it's okay. If you're shy, you can change your name. The numbers one eight hundred five to zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five to zero one five three four. But let me start by going to social We did have an anonymous call or call in. They just weren't comfortable being on air, and they wanted to know how did you get out of your trauma bond? They said that you touched on it and they wanted some Ever, how I got out of my
own trauma bond? That's a great question. So I didn't end of the story, did I. It took a lot of years, and it ebbs and flows back and forth. I would let him back into my life and then get rid of them again. But what it doesn't matter about what I did. It's about how I changed the feeling inside me where I didn't have the longing anymore. And I did, accidentally. The things that research says can heal an anxious attachment style one is building a secure relationship with your children.
So I was a single mom. I read all the doctor Sears books on attachment parenting. I practiced attachment parenting. I slept with my babies, I wore my babies. I breastfend by each of my babies for three years. And you know, kids don't leave you, and after a while, it soothes you, and that research shows that when a parent says to their baby, don't worry, daddy's here or mummy's here, I'll be home soon. I'll never leave you. I love you, there's another brain in the
room that's listening, and that brain is the parent's brain. So by consoling and caring for a child, in some ways, you're also healing yourself. So that's one way I think I healed. Another way is having a good, consistent relationship with a licensed therapist. For years, I never missed my therapy appointment. And it was rough, crying in a therapist's office about and
going with a fine toothcomb over one's childhood. It was really rough. And also, you know, now I can say this now, when I finally picked somebody who had a secure attachment style, who could soothe me and not go running away or getting avoidant and talk about things when things came up,
that also became healing. And so it's a combination of all those things, time, parenting, therapy, just choosing better, you know, for me and for many people out there who choose relationships that are painful, sometimes starting a new relationship and then finding out rather quickly that the feelings you're having inside yourself are the same as the last person, and knowing that this is not good for you and being able to leave earlier is actually progress, right.
So I mean, my friends, I remember when I was looking for my wonderful boyfriend now and I'd be going through the dating apps and be like no, no, no, no, wiping away, and they're like, you're just being so picky. They said, why are you being so picky? But for me that was progress because the younger me would have been like, well, you know, maybe I can just be in love with hope. Maybe he'll change or maybe he'll get better. Let me just give him lots
of love. I'll kill him with kindness. I'll be a love blah. I'll be as cheerleader. I'll be kind to him, he'll stay, he'll be nice, it'll be fun. No. Now, I'm like, uh, the signs are there moving on. And so for many of you who get into painful relationships, it is progress to date, not multiple people at the same time, but dates different people and then break up quickly. When you start. It's not about seeing the reds, it's about becoming aware of
the same feeling inside yourself, like oh, here we go again. I'm walking right towards another train wreck. Here we go, so away. That was a long answer to a short question producer Kayla. Let's go to social media because you guys are sending me lots of dms. If you'd like to call in the numbers one eight hundred and five to zero one K five. Dear doctor Wendy, I was dating this man for three months before we had sex, and the second we had sex, Oh, he ghosted me.
I feel so insecure now and find it really hard to trust. How can I get closure and begin to heal if he won't tell me why he did that to me? Okay, so here we go. I have been there first of all, every human on the planet, more often women than men, have that happen. They made a choice to have sex with somebody they didn't fully trust. They trusted, but they shouldn't have trusted because they I didn't do the vetting. And I know you mentioned time, well, I
spent three months. Time is not always people say, well, when should you sleep with someone for the first time when you trust them and they've proven themselves to be trustworthy. There are lots of little tests and ways that we can find out if the person is trustworthy, simple little things like calling when they say they're going to call, showing up on time, being kind and considerate, being open when you share your feelings, and being kind about that.
That is how you earn trust, all right, So when you so okay, So basically you waited three months, your question to me is how am I going to heal? If he won't tell me what? It doesn't matter because why he left you has nothing to do with you, has entirely
to do with him. And as soon as you stop and I learned this so you just as soon as you stop analyzing them, and instead of focusing on your feelings, which is taking time to feel the loss, It's okay to feel sad, it's okay to grieve, It's okay to rehash the relationship and say, what am I going to do different next time? But take full responsibility. You had sex with someone you didn't trust. I know you didn't know. I know you thought you trusted them. I know they tried
to prove themselves. They might have been tricky. So now you know next time there might be tricksters out there. I'll wait a little longer, I'll ask some other questions. The time will be the healer. Okay, producer, Kayla, we have somebody on the line. We have a couple of people. Okay, Ashley with the question, Okay, Hi, Actually it's doctor Wendy. Hi, doctor Wendy. It's such a pleasure to get through too. How are you? I'm good? How are you? I am
well? I am just calling with an issue that I'm having with my boyfriend. I've been dating him for about four months now, and in this course of us dating, it has come about that he had a girlfriend or another girlfriend, and in us having this dispute, he has broken up with her
and now it's committed to me, and now it's developed. I've developed serious trust issues now with just the situation in itself, and he's shown that he's really trying to be committed or wants to be committed to me, and I just don't know how to give him the trust or if I should give them
trust. You know what this reminds me of, Ashley. There's research out of the Kinsey Institute that says that if people lie on their profile, people have trouble having relationships with them at all, whether they're lying about height, weight, income, zip code, right when they start off with a lie, it's so hard to trust. And now did he lie or did he omit the truth? Like, were you having a discussion about are you fully
single and free? Or did it start off as a kind of casual situation ship But it started off as a casual situation shift and you just assumed he was single. I assumed he was single based on my conditions of going to be intimate. It's going to be me and me only. Oh and you said that to him and he was at the same time sleeping with someone else and lied to you. Rat, I'm sorry, dumped this guy. Sorry, just go, Ashley, dumb. He lied to you in a big
way. He cheated you from the very beginning, and you know what he's doing. He's testing to see if you'll put up with more. There's another guy out there who's going to be kind, loving, trustworthy, completely honest from the beginning, and he's waiting to meet you. Be a strong Barbie, Ashley. Let that can go. Thank you for calling. I'm sorry. I sometimes I'm just hard when I hear that that. She was very clear and said, look, I'm not going to have sex with you if
unless you and I are the only people having sex. It doesn't mean that we're going to be together forever, doesn't mean you're my boyfriend. But if we're going to enter this intimate relationship physically, I'd like to know that I'm the only person you're sleeping with. And he lied. Now four months later he says he's been seeing somebody else, and then he's going to break up with her. Now, Oh, I'm sorry, too late, too late, you lose all right, let's go to break when we come back.
The number is one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio Appum, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM six forty kf I AM sixty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. I am taking your calls. Reminder,
I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor, but I'm obsessed with the science of love. I've written three books on relationships. Did a dissertation on attachment theory. And to those of you who thought I was a little hard on Ashley earlier by telling her to leave her, dude, it's not like she's been with him ten years. It's not like their children involved.
That would be different advice. This is the early vetting stages of a relationship, and if you start lying from the beginning, folks, then you're gonna lose your partners, all right, Producer, Kayla, who do we have? We have Jackie with the question jack Hi, Jackie. It's doctor Wendy. Hi, doctor Wendy. I'm in med school. I did an intake, my first intake today with a patient, and I've found myself really, really emotional afterwards. And I wondered if you had any guidance on this because
I'm super impasse. Yeah, and I could feel everything like we start with the childhood with the patient. And I know this is not a romantic question, but I'm wondering if you had any guidance on self care with something like this. You know, you, in particular, because you're an EmPATH, probably went into the medical field because of your desire to care for others.
So here's what I so at the very beginning, when I was like as a psychological assistant seeing patients and I was still in grad school, I would have the same thing because I'm really empathetic and I was a single mom with toddlers, so I would come home at the end of the day and just my brain was exhausted from all the air and then I'd have a screaming two year old to take care of. Right, So I for me, what I did is limit the amount of patients I would see, or you know,
get more support with the motherhood or whatever, but realize that this was going to be a challenge for me. The other thing I'll tell you is that I was also a news reporter for a lot of years, and we covered some terrible tragedies, terrible tragedies, some heartbreaking situations, and you know, at first I thought the other crews were very callous because they'd make jokes, etc. And you've heard about emergency room humor, But that is how
we deal with painful feelings. So time is probably going to be your friend. And at the beginning, it's going to be hard. And after you've heard these painful stories, after a while, you're going to say to yourself, you're going to keep your brain on what can I do to help? Instead of oh, this is so painful to get into your intellectual brain? What can I do to help? But thank you for going into the medical field, Jackie. You're the people we need there, people with a good
bedside matter manner. Thank you so much for calling. All right, producer, Kayla, who do we have next? We have Robin with the question Robin, Hi, Robin, it's doctor Wendy. Robin. Are you there? Hello? All right, we have there we go. Okay, Hi Robin, it's doctor Wendy. Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good? What's your question? Love? So I'm recovering from an eighteen year marriage with the culvert, narcissist and some you know, spiritual abuse. Um in
the church. Oh, he ended up grooming me and divorcing his wife and wanting to to marry me after you know all of this happened. And how old were you when you first met him? The pastor or my husband past? I was this? This happened in twenty twenty, so um forty four? Now, okay, so you were an adult, but he still was able to groom you because of how much you wanted to do well, yeah, I served. Yeah, I served under him, and I you know, I trusted him, and you know, he was I was going through
cancer, COVID and crazy. So I was divorcing my covert and my husband, and um, you know, he was there for me. He showed up in the hospital for me and brought my family food and YadA YadA. And then he divorced his wife and then you know, we're going to live happily ever after. And then I called his ex wife because I was getting this nauseating feeling in the pit of my stomach and I'm like, oh my god, here we go again. And so my question is like, now
I have serious trust is shoes. I feel like everybody and their mothers and narcissists. You know, if I meet someone, I don't want to tell them what I'm looking for because I feel like they're going to mirror me, Like yeah, yeah, don't tell them. That's actually a technique. How are you supposed to get to know someone if you're not open and honest and you know, like, well, you don't know what kind of relationships you're gonna be. Okay, so number one, you would be a great candidate
for therapy. So I do suggest that you're going in a licensed therapist, so then you have a wingman. You can go after your dates, you can go back to your therapy appointment and say, okay, so here's what happened. Do you think I live? But here's the sneaky thing is that this happens very commonly with women. Women will disclose in the early stages of
dating what they're looking for. I'm really glad you brought this up from and they'll disclose what they're looking for, and then the men say that they are
that they will perform and become that right in their mind. So my advice is not to tell them what you're looking for, but to just watch, just watch, and instead talk about your feelings and your reaction to whatever they're doing, or saying, well, when you said that, that made me feel it could be positive, right, made me feel encouraged or whatever. But that's instead of saying I'm looking for a guy who's this, this, this, Then he'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, that's me,
that's me. Just say I'm looking to get to know somebody and see how it goes and let them they're they're auditioning for you. Don't forget that they sperm chase's egg, not the reverse. And even when you don't mean to reproduce, at a basic biological level, women are the prize. Don't ever forget that. Thank you for calling Robin. All right, do we have time for one more? We do? We have Kim with a question. Jim, Hi, Kim, it's doctor Wendy. Hi. Hi. Can
you either me? Okay? I can hear you perfectly, Okay. I'm fighting cancer, breast cancer right now. Say one. I'm going to radiation. Let me lie. I've been together for twenty three years, married sixteen, so my rock. I feel so ugly sosgusty kay. I want to say something. First of all, you are very very brave. I am so proud of you for calling in. I want to remind you this is the good news part that stage one breast cancer is the best breast cancer ever
to get. One in eight women are going to get breast cancer in their life, and if they're lucky enough to discover it at stage one, it's ninety eight percent curable. Doesn't mean this is easy. The way you speak about your husband is beautiful. You call him your rock, and I'm pretty darn sure that he is terrified of losing you, and he loves you and
he thinks you're beautiful. There are organizations, Kayla, I want you to cruise around and see if we can find some for this caller that actually do hair and makeup and makeovers for any woman going through cancer treatment, because part of healing is feeling good about yourself right, looking good, getting as tired as you are, as sick as you feel, getting up in the morning, getting dressed, putting on a little bit bit of makeup if that's your
style, can help your self esteem. But also the sadness you're feeling is part of the whole. You know, your body's full of chemicals and the future feels uncertain to you and it can feel very, very very scary. So if it is in your budget or call your health insurance, I really want you to get some emotional cancer support, some either group therapy, a good support group, or a one on one therapist, because you deserve it.
This fight is yours, but we're all in it with you, all women, all women, because one in eight of us will get press cancer. And Kim, I know it's hard to have this thought right now because this can be a scary time and you're feeling very sad, but you're one of the lucky ones who caught it at stage one and I feel you're going to get through this and but you're going to need support. Don't do it alone. Reach out. You need to reach out some stution cancer organizations who
are going to support you through this. Oh, you're so brave. You're my hero. Thank you Kim for calling in. I appreciate it. Okay, when we come back. Robert Sternberg his triangular theory of love, three prongs on his triangle. If you have at least two of these three things, your relationship is going to be okay. If you only have one, I'm not saying divorce corps. But maybe you're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio.
Happened You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty. KFY Am six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. Wow, it's a home stretch already of the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. How does two hours go by that quickly? Gaila, great callers and great content. Crazy crazy was that Tom Jones was there? WHOA I loved him? Oh my god, so fun? All right, I am fan girling over a
guy named doctor Robert Sternberg at Cornell University. He's literally known as one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, best known for his ground baking research on intelligence, love, creativity, and cognitive styles. So when I teach developmental psychology, I teach his theory on intelligence, but then I teach
his triangular theory of love. And this idea came for me to revisit this topic on our show this week because I had friend who was deciding whether or not to leave his wife, and he was struggling with this decision back and forth, and they had tried. They'd separated for a while, you know, like a month, and then they missed each other and they got back and they were doing that back and forth, back and forth thing. And I said, well, have you ever looked at Robert Sternberg's theory and determined
that you have at least two of the three elements of love? Because the research says that if you have at least two, did you give it another shot? But if you have only one, it's going to be hard. So what are the three components of love according to Robert Sternberg, And they can be all kinds of combinations really interesting. So one is emotional intimacy. Another is he calls it a passion, which is you know, the sexy
part lust right attraction, physical attraction. And the other is commitment into llectual commitment. Now here's the interesting thing. At different stages of your relationship, you're going to have different amounts of these kinds of things. So at the very beginning you're probably going to have a whole lot of passion, a lot of lust, a lot of attraction. That's what happens when you first meet somebody. It's very exciting, and then you can grow that into something if
you're chatting after the sex, into emotional intimacy. And then at a certain point your brain is going to say, see that it's actually human being you're dealing with, and do a cost benefit analysis and go, you know what, I'm gonna make a commitment to it. Anyway I can put up with the things that they're not perfect with and that's the commitment. Right now. What Robert Sternberg said is that you can have relationships that are combinations of these
things but missing one. For instance, if you have emotional intimacy and hot sex passion, but you don't have any commitment. What's that, Kayla? What kind of relationship would that be? Commitment but hot sex? Physical and you like each other? You got emotional intimacy and hot sex. Okay, I know you're gonna say a situationship. I don't know, sneak or an affair. You can't have commitment because somebody's married to somebody or you're both married
to other people. Okay, So now there could be another one where you have lots of emotional intimacy and lots of commitment but no sex. What could that be asexual? It could be an a sexual relationship. Could be a relationship where you're older and your hormones have changed and you're not breaking up because you're not knocking boots anymore. You've got grandkids and great grandkids to worry about. You like each other, you still have a good relationship. Robert Sternberg
would call that mature companionate love. Right. Here's my favorite because I read about him in the tabloids all the time. What if you have passion hot sex and commitment, but no emotional intimacy, so you're committed to each other,
you're having great sex. Those are those celebrity relationships where they run off to Vegas and they get into tabloids, like I think Britney Spears had about four of them, where they just meet somebody and it's so hot and the tabloids are all crazy, and then you find out they got married, and you're like, they got married when the honeymoon phase is hot and heavy. Yeah, I get wrapped up in that. Speaking of which, this was not a short relationship. But did you is this true? Are Justin Bieber
and Haley Bieber divorcing? Oh? I didn't hear that. That's what my daughter told me today because we were at Air one. I'm sorry I said that word. We were at that expensive, crazy grocery store with all the weird looking people, I'm sorry, and buying smoothies they cost the price of a car, and the smoothie everybody was ordering is called the Hailey Bieber Skin
Smoother Smoothie. It was the internet well saying that apparently he endorsed her gait her glazing milk amid the divorce rumors, so it's just rum and speculation at this point. Maybe they're doing it to sell those smoothies. Keep an eye on them. Interesting anyway, there was a lineup of girls with tiny waists and big hips and big lips to getting this skin smoother, the Haley Bieber, and I thought like, does everyone buy her name and pay her?
Like? How does that work? But they've been together like six years or something, right, there's not a quickie relationship. Yes, a lot of andre Rianna Grande is having an affair with the merry Man. That's a lot going on. We might have to cover some of the week, my goodness. Okay, So here's what Robert Sternberg says. He says, while all these other kinds of relationships might exist, everyone wants to strive for having what's
called an ideal love relationship. An ideal love relationship has emotional intimacy, it has hot sexual passion, and it has strong commitment. Now, every long term relationship I hope will have that at least for a day. Okay. It ebbs and flows and changes all the time. Sometimes one is less, sometimes one is more. But if one is completely missing, you have a
high chance of breaking up. So let's think about it. Let's say you're having close emotional intimacy and you're really committed to somebody, Well, you could just be like living like roommates. Then are you going to stay because at some point one of you is going to want to have sex? Right, Let's say you have great emotional intimacy and great sex but no commitment. Somebody's
going to get mad that there's no commitment after a while. Right, So if you think about it, while it would be wonderful to have all three at all times, at different stages of our relationships, they will shift in their priority. But also keep in mind if you only have two of those for a while, you're probably going to struggle more. You're going to have to talk about things. When we talk about relationships being work, the work,
well, it's joyful work, especially the sexual work. It's joyful work. How can you improve your passion and sex life by scheduling sex, by adding novelty, doing different things, even just putting your partner in a different room can feel different. Right, how do you increase commitment? You have conversations about this, you talk about you know, like people are like, I've been with my boyfriend for like three years, and he doesn't ever want
to talk about getting married. Why well, why aren't you bringing it up? And why aren't you given a deadline? Not an ultimatum. Ultimatums are very different than boundaries. Ultimatums are where you're saying you better do this or else, and you're trying to manipulate somebody's behavior. It never works out in the long run. A boundaries when you say, oh, I'm so sorry, I can only wait another three months and then I have to go very
different. Then I expect a proposal within three months instead of trying to get somebody else to behave If you're trying to increase emotional intimacy, well that's what we talked about the beginning of the show. Talk about your feelings, even if you have made up stories in your head about what's going on, tell them what your made up story is. That's how you can increase it. Ah, it's always so sad to get to the end of the show.
I could talk about love all day long. Producer Kayla. It's so fascinating to me. And when I'm out of public, I know you're listening to me, going like, what if she sees me out there? I'm always studying couples, how their body language is, how they behave to each other, how they respond to each other. I can like diagnose what's going on in their relationship, which is by watching them. So will beware if you're out there in public and you seem in a restaurant. This is my favorite
thing to do. It's just interesting to me how people relate. All right, If you'd like to follow me on social media, you certainly may. The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh. If you'd like to join my Patreon, it's patreon dot com slash doctor Wendy Walsh. Every Wednesday we do a live little Zoom Room. We have quite a great community many KFI listeners that we see every Wednesday at six thirty pm. It is always my pleasure
to weigh in on your love lives. We'll see you next Sunday. You've been listening to the Doctor Anddy Welsh show on kf I 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 kf I Am six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.