This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KF I am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Oh. On today's show, let's talk about love and money. How income affects our relationships. You know, when women earn more than their partners, there can be certain problems. But when a man makes way more than her, oh, special problems there. Later in the show, I'll also be taking your relationship calls. I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm not a therapist. I'm
a psychology professor. But I've written three books on relationships, and I did my dissertation on attachment theory. I'm obsessed with the science of love. Producer Kayla, how are you today? I am wonderful, Doctor Wendy. You look lovely. Thank You'll let you know you look lovely. Thank you very much. Like to switch it up every now and a ya, yes, yes, so you should. We got Sandy Wells in the newsroom. How are you doing? Do you make more or less money than your wife?
You don't have to answer that question. We'll find out later what this means. Tony, how are you, Tony Sargantino. It's one of my favorite board text because whenever I have technical problems, I call Tony at any time of the day or night. He could be mid byte in a restaurant, he could be in a swimming pool, and he picks up his phone and says, what's up, what do you what do you need? Both have happened. I've happened. He's like, I'm sitting by the pool with my
friends. It's okay. But thank you Tony for all of that anytime. So last night I went to the Hollywood Bowl shout out Happy Birthday to my friend Lisa Bloom. It was her birthday and she had a group of girlfriends in a box there and her mom, Gloria Allread, was there looking gorgeous, and she invited me to see the Sound of Music sing Along movie. Now, at first I was like, well, that's interesting, but I
didn't realize. You know, there's a cult thing happening at the Hollywood Bowl every year for the Sound of Music sing Along that is not unlike Rocky Horror Picture Show, but better what do you mean? So everyone dresses up in costumes of either characters from the movie or lyrics from the songs and then they buried across stage. There was a hysterical comedian host and I don't know her name. Can you someone who's listening tell me her name. Her last name
is Peterson, that's all I know. And she was a very funny comedian and she helped all these and then we applauded and certain people want I'll tell you who I wanted to win, and she didn't. There's a shout out going to a grandmother somewhere who made these costumes. These two little girls came on stage and Kayla, is it okay to identify somebody by race if it makes them more beautiful when you tell the story of how visual they are. I don't speak for all of my people, but I think it's okay to
describe people by race. It's it's differences, is there? It's not a bad thing to say. I want you to picture two little, gorgeous brown girls dressed in canary yellow. One was a sunshine and the other was a drop of golden sunshine. I love that. She was like two years old and she had a little yellow tutu and yellow tights and she was a drop of golden sunshine. Oh my god, I nearly. It caught my breath.
Anyway, they didn't win. They should have won. Okay, the people who won were like, who can't the marionettes, That's who won anyway. So who are the people who go to this? You would think just families? Right, Yeah, that's her. What's her name? Melissa Peter, Melissa Peterman, Melissa Peterman follow her on Instagram. You guys, she's hysterical. I want to go see her perform because she's very funny. So the gay men love to come and dress up in their leaderhousuns, those short
shorts with the suspenders and the knee socks. The lesbians loved to dress up as the nuns. The drag queens dressed up as the baroness, the glamor woman that he almost married before he mentioned married Maria. And all the kids dressed up as all the kids. I mean it was we even all had nuns costumes in our group, so we were I was having a little PTSD having gone to Catholic school myself. I was like, I'm going to dawn a habit right now for this birthday party. But I did just the head
dress part for me. But anyway, it was a lovely way to celebrate a birthday. And now that I know what it is, I'm gonna go every year. My friend Lisa Bloom now has me hooked. So you're a part of the call. I'm part of the cult. It's no, it's like one of those Angelino experiences that everybody in Los Angeles should just do. Once one of my friends was saying his co parent and their daughter go every year. Yeah, every year. Oh no, the lots of families there.
It was. It was a cross section of everything great in Los Angeles. And then the fact that we sang as you know how many people the Hollywood bull hold, I don't know, thousands singing together, and then when he sang Adelweiss, everybody holds up their iPhone with the light on, and it was like thousands and thousands of people a way. It was beautiful. Anyway, I was touched. All right, Now, let's talk about men who have misspoken in the news this week. Look, I'm in radio,
I worry. I'm on social media. I worry about saying the wrong thing all the time. I've been attacked by trolls. I've been told I've pulled down videos, I've said I'm sorry it's happened, but I haven't like lost my whole livelihood. No, I see your dms. They are vicious off I try not to read too many of them. I leave them for you, Caleb. So one gentleman is named John Wenner. He is the co found of Rolling Stone magazine and also the co founder of the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. I'm gonna give him a little bit of a pass because he's seventy seven, but this week he was removed from the Hall's board of directors after making comments that we're seen as disparaging toward black and female musicians. You see, he's out promoting a new book where it features interviews that he's done over the years with seven super famous musicians. All well and good, but they're all white men, and so, you know, Mick Jaggern,
whatever, I think, Bruce Springsteen's in there. Whatever. So then the interviewer at the New York Times says to him, Hey, oh, I noticed like he didn't feature any women. And his quote is I'm going to read it directly insofar as women will, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level. And the interviewer said, well, what about Joni Mitchell. Well, you know, Joni's not a philosopher of rock and roll. She didn't really meet my test. I know. Then of black
artists, he said, Stevie Wonder is a genius. Right, Well, I suppose you could use a word as broad as masters, maybe even Marvin Gay or Curtis Mayfield. I mean, they just didn't articulate at that level. And they later he says, you know, for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found a black person and a white woman are artists to include here, But then they wouldn't have measured up to some historical standards. Your racism is showing. Yeah, he's gone. He's gone.
He's gone. Sorry, dude, you're gone. Bye bye. Okay. Tyler Perry, we love him, Yeah, but you didn't say that with much authority. Right now, I'm proud of Tyler Perry. Tyler Perry. We left Perry. So he appeared on the Keep It Positive Sweetie podcast and he shared his feelings about dividing household expenses. You know, I told you we'd get to relationships, and he revealed that they don't have to split down
the middle. And here's what he said in the in our society right now, black women are making a lot more money for the most part than black men. Right There are a lot of black men who are successful, but for the most part, black women are making the money. So you, if you can find love, if that man works, you know, at whatever job, and is a good man and is good to you and honors the house, honest wife, and does what he can because his gift may
not be your gift exactly, that is okay. That's not somebody who's beneath you. That's somebody who came to love you at your work, right and as long as he's secure in himself to know that, yep, she makes most of the money. All I can pay is a light deal. As long as she's comfortable enough to say, I'm going to cover the mortgage and all the other stuff. You can't light deal, baby, you can take me to dinner and every now and then, that is fine. Yeah,
that's fine. Okay, Kayla. Why didn't you like this quote? I just feel like you are a rich male who does not need to tell women what they need to accept from a man, especially if with a life that you can't relate to. All right, I don't like a women tell women how to be anyway or what to do. But he was on a podcast he was asked directly there this reminds me of who is the guy who wrote the book is Marriage for White People? That professor at was it Davis or
Berkeley? And he basically says that if if you want to hold on to the strong black family, you might want to marry outside of your race, if you're going to look for a financial equal or whatever. But he also said to not look down on a man making less. I want to take this conversation away from race and focus on gender because there are a lot of white women making more money than their husbands too. That was Ralph Richard Banks.
Ralph Richard Banks who said that right, very interesting book, filled with lots of good statistics. But Tyler Perry, before we get into the whole thing about money and love in general, why do you think the internet? I know you gave me your personal opinion, Kayla. Why do you think
the internet has such a backlash year? I feel the internet, especially Black women, feel like we've been told to accept last for way too long or settled for last for way too long, and it's like, no, actually, I'm enough and this is what I want, and this is my boundary. And I don't have to accept last because you tell me I need to accept last. I've been accepting last for way too long, way too many
generations, way too many are aunt. No, no, no, this is what I'm worth, this is what I want, and I'm not settling anymore. I love that. On the other hand, what all women are worth is care, commitment, love. I've always said that relationships are an exchange of care, and that care can take many forms. Maybe I'm saying what Tyler Perry said in a different way. It can be financial care,
it can be emotional support care, it can be domestic responsibility care. But I also know that there's a motherhood tax on women that at a certain point, I love my kids, but at a certain point they become an economic ball and chain on women, and then we're expected to keep up right. So I do understand historically why women have always gone for men with high resources.
Evolutionary psychologists would say that that's naturally ingrained inside us. Tyler's I think trying to get women to say, you know, that's there are lots of other things that make a man worthy and good, because it's also putting a lot of pressure on men. And again, let's take race off for a minute. Think of men who just aren't making as much money in general, or men who are you know, maybe they're paying off x wives and kids and they hear older women say, oh, he just wants a purse or
a nurse. I'm like, come on, anyway, when we come back, let us talk more about this subject. And let's talk about what happens when within marriages, when the woman makes a lot more money or when the man makes a lot more money. Very interesting stuff. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KF I am six forty. Let's talk about love and money. I always start by telling you about my experience for the most
part, so I you know, I think you know. I had a childhood wedding when I was in college and I was like twenty and I did I was still in college. I had part time jobs, so my husband was mostly supporting us. We didn't have children or anything, and it was only for three years. But our fights over money were the fact that he didn't allow me to participate in the financial He would give me an allowance for the week, so to speak. And I felt controlled, and I would
over use credit cards, almost in defiance. Right, I look back and see that that's what I did. Then I went on to slowly build a career. I had one stint where when I first moved to town, I had a very wealthy boyfriend I lived with for four years and it was a beautiful mansion on a hill, and that was lovely, and I was in golden handcuffs. And what I learned during those years was that when you don't
have financial power, you don't get to make any of the decisions. I mean, you can please and beg and say this is where I'd really like to go on vacation, or this is an item I'd like to buy, and if you're with a kind, generous person, they will give it out as they feel they should. But you don't have a sense of freedom. And so when I got my first job was anchoring the news at KCOP, I'll just tell you, because I'm open about everything, I'm just making seventy
thousand dollars a year. I was thirty years old. There's a most money I ever made in my life. I immediately moved out from him, got a little one bedroom apartment because that felt better to me than the mansion on the hill. Now, I do not put down my girlfriends who are in amazingly wealthy marriages, and you know what, go for it and if you can hang in there. I just couldn't because for me, if it doesn't feel like a peer relationship, you don't feel like we have equal power,
then it doesn't feel good to me. So then I started ray men started supporting men, and I'm like, oh oh, And then the financial abuse happened. In fact, Kayla, there was a woman we're trying to get on as a guest, right, who runs some nonprofit for financial abuse against Oh. Yes, yes, yes, yes, we got to get her because we do it. This is the thing that's most talked not talked about
in relationships nowadays. So it used to be that men would hit and run and leave her with a baby and a lifetime of poverty because she was a single mother. I'm talking about in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, right, women started making money and men started not just extracting free sex from women, but extracting finances. And they have all kinds of ways to do it. And I don't mean just online romance. Scams that happen through
dating apps or whatever. Those are happening, but I mean pretending to be a commitment oriented boyfriend until he's got you somehow, he's got some way to get money out of you in some way. And then what happens is when the women realize that they have been romance sca and their heart is broken at the same time that their bank account has been drained. They don't want to tell anybody because of the shame. They feel so ashamed, and this is
epidemic. But let's not talk about those relationships right now. Let's talk about married couples. Right So you know that during the last century, women's salaries have gone up, and that means their contributions so the household have gone up. Believe it or not, because you're thinking you're in a big urban center with women who are very successful. There's a lot of rural areas. There are a lot of small towns. There are a lot of traditional traditional people
in America. And still fifty five percent of heterosexual opposite sex marriages, the man is the primary wage earner fifty five percent. Okay, Now, in about twenty nine percent marriages, they're making about the same amount of money sixteen percent of a full on breadwinner wife. You don't have to acute story. A friend of mine her husband retired before her, five six years before her.
She's going to retire soon. But she said to me, oh my god, it's so easy to make money when you have a wife at home because when the husband retired, he took over the laundry, the shopping, the house cleaning, the yardwork. She goes, I just come into my house and use it and go back to work. She goes, if I'd known that, I would have gotten a wife years ago. So it does help people make money. So there are problems that happen when women make more
money than men. For instance, mail insecurity. Right, men, just if they have ingested that societal norm that they should be the primary breadwinner, they're going to be insecure. And how do they showcase their insecurity. They get angry and nitpicky at women. They go and have affairs to prove their
manhood somewhere, or maybe they practice financial abuse. I don't know. They're also maybe a lot of conflict around decision making because again historically, like in the marriage I was in, the women were didn't have as much voice and so when the woman has the money, then she starts to become like, no, we're going here, No we're buying this, and he's like now
really emasculated. Right, So there's conflict around that. There's some other conflicts that I do want to talk about when we come back, as well as what we can do. And then let's talk about why wealthy people actually have worse love lives. You wouldn't believe why you're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I am six forty glad you picked that song Millionaire. That's a beautiful song that was you. He feels like a millionaire just because he
has this amazing woman. Oh I love it. Speaking about loving money, we're talking about relationships where the woman makes more than the man. I'm not suggesting that women should try to make less money, okay, I'm just saying be prepared for some of the conflicts that might happen around male insecurity, about disparities in the work and leisure time, division of household labor. So here's
what you need to do. You need to talk about this everything. You know, the healthiest couples have actually lots of mini conflict all day long. They have border skirmishes. Juli and I do too. Is we do like sort of fake bickering. It's like sport for us. But that's how we work stuff out. So maintain open communication. Try very hard not to judge, don't try to think that they've got to think like you. And also understand that relationships are about compromising, right. You can't just dig in your
heels whether you're the breadwinner or not. You're in there to share a life together and with any kind of couple. That happen, couples conflict that happens. Don't point fingers, don't blame all right, If you're deciding, I get this question sent on social media all the time, whether to marry somebody who makes less money for you? The first word I say is prenuptial agreement. But secondly, focus on how compatible you guys are. Talk about all
the other pieces of relationship. As I said, relationships are many things. When you exchange care. Now, it was this really interesting article this week in Forbes magazine. Did I send it to you, Kayla, or did you send it to me? About why wealthy people have worse love lives? No, you found that on your own. It was so interestingly, the Internet gave it to me because they knew I'd want that one. So here's
what you should know about happiness. If you are wondering if money can buy happiness, the research shows cross cultural research shows that about fifty percent of our happiness level is one hundred percent genetic. If you had a happy parents and happy grandparents and happy great grandparents, you got a good shot of being a basically a happy person and looking at life through a glass half full, being
positive and energetic. I would say Kayla got that gene. For instance, She's warm, she's happy, she flirts with everybody at the clubs, she's a welcoming person. Right, that's genetic. Then ten percent is only related to economic stuff. So in other words, and mostly if it moves you out of poverty into the middle class, that can make you happier, right, because you're not stressing so much. But what about that other forty percent
of happiness that's up to us? Now? This interesting article Informs magazine basically said that many affluent people complain that they can't find love or they have bad relationships, and they use rationalizations like, you know, it's just too hard to balance my work with a romantic relationship because I'm working so much, or I feel like my lifestyle isolates me. Yes, I'm sitting in my mention on the hill. I can't meet people. I can't just go on Tinder,
Well you could. Or they say they travel too much and they're going to events and meeting people and they're wondering if people like them for their money or like them for them. Okay, those are a bunch of rationalizations. Here's the truth. A twenty sixteen study that was published in Front Tears in Psychology revealed that people who are wealthier place more emphasis on a partner's appearance, especially for straight men. Yeah, women will go with a really wealthy guy
as long as his wardrobe is all made out one hundred dollar bills. I mean, he can look so ugly it didn't matter. So the other problem is that wealthy people enter social circles where there is a great deal of social shame. So they feel like compelled to pursue people that are outside of their league, right in the looks department, because they go money, so they
think they deserve it somehow. Now I want to tell you this. I believe that some people who put making money ahead of everything else in life, are often compensating, compensating for some feelings of low self esteem. Maybe they're thinking, I feel unlovable, so when I become rich people will like me
then. Or maybe they have relationship problems because they have attachment injuries. Maybe they came from wealthy parents who are working all the time or socializing all the time, or traveling all the time and left them with nannies with inconsistent childcare, so they have an insecure attachment style and they go on and live that out in their adult romantic behavior. There's also research to show that I'm sorry, I don't shoot the messenger here. This is a twenty twelve study published
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They found that the more wealthy somebody is, the more they have a relaxed attitude about unethical behavior. You know, low friends in low friends in high places. Yes, so they're a little lax about the rules. Did you know the less money you make, the more you follow the rules. Not interesting? Maybe they have to break rules on their tax return or something I don't know, and so their
decision making often leans towards self interest rather than fairness. For everybody that's hard in a relationship, right, It makes them less considerate of others. They have a little less empathy, and they have an over emphasis emphasis on winning. Remember I told us the story a couple of weeks ago that when I did a Day in the Life of Donald Trump, when I hosted extra, he kept like he wanted to flirt with me, but he only my value
to him. It appeared to me was that he needed to know who he was stealing me from, because all he kept asking me is isn't many many, many years ago in the nineties, who I was dating in LA, who I had dated in La, who my exes were? Like? In his mind, I had to be with higher end men so that he could steal me and feel that I was an object of value. That's that over emphasis on winning. So here's what a psychologist would say, and this is
what is listed in the great Forbes article that you should read. Diversify your social portfolio. It's good for your mental health. Having a diverse group of people gives you a much wider perspective on life. So get on out there, get out of your glass castle on top of the hill, go to a TGI Friday's go to an Applebee's, go to the ardhouse. You'll mean. I had a wealthy friend once, years and years ahead, and he was living in his mansion up on a hill, and he's saying, it's
just as before dating apps. It's so hard to meet women I go. You know where they are. You know they're at Applebee's, They're at TGI Friday's. The nice assistants who are working so hard all day long and look great. There's where you're gonna beet nice regular down the nurses. That's where they go for a drink after work. Okay, Also seek value, not just winning. Don't look for those flashy short term relationships to show off.
Look for deeper connections and continue to learn. That means go to counseling. See it there, go to workshops. Try to focus on developing your personal life. There are a lot of lonely, isolated, wealthy people. When I'm at my Julio. Before I met him, I was on the apps for a few months during COVID. And let me tell you, gentlemen,
ladies, you should know this. In Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, there are a plethora of lonely men sitting in nice houses with wine cellars, driving porsches, and it was like one after another, and they didn't seem any different to me. They were sort of the same character over and over and over. So anyway, if you want that, ladies, there there, that's where you should be looking, all right, when we come back. Are you in a fantasy relationship? And I don't mean your imagination like you're
imagining being with a celebrity, I mean the relationship you're in. Are you fantasizing about how good it is? Because I used to do that all the time, and let me tell you it did not work for me. Let me explain. When we come back. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I am six forty. If you would like to see us here in the studio, you can log onto my Instagram. I'd like to welcome my grand followers. Hi, guys, We're also live on Instagram.
My handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. And you know what, I actually forgot my phone. When do you ever forget your cell phone? And I remembered it on the one oh one freeway because my boyfriend Julio called and only my watch rang, so I was like talking to my watch, going where's my phone? And I realized I left at home, So I decided not to turn around. I decided to just see what life would be like for half a day without a phone. Of course, then I wanted to go
live on Instagram. And I looked at Kayla like a deer caught in headlights, like what would I do? And She's like, well, I'm logged onto your Instagram. I can just go in because she gets the dms right. If you send me dms about questions for on air, Kayla will read them and provide them to me. So there, now I'm on Kayla's phone. I'm running down your battery. Okay. I wanted to talk about this. I wrote about this in my book The Boyfriend Test. How do we
evaluate his potential before you lose your heart? So many people fall in love with a partner's potential. I like to think they fall in love with hope. They fall in love with things will get better. Often this is connected to having an insecure attachment style, a faulty model for love that happened very early in life from your family of origin. But you know, we do have a good prefrontal cortex and we can start to think through what we're doing
in our love lives. I had many relationships that were bad, one that was toxic, one that all my friends said he was bad, and I always made excuses and rationalizations. I know what the brainin does when it's tricking us. Right, So let's talk about signs that you're in a fantasy relationship and what you should do about it. How about this. You're always thinking about the future. You're all always thinking about how great things will be once
they change or once you fix them. Right, We're not supposed to heal our partner. It is not our job to heal our partner. But if you're spending your time not thinking about your present happiness but instead thinking about your future and how things will just get better, that means you're in love with longing. You're not in love right now. Another check our brain does is
sometimes we will focus too much on the past, the golden days. Every relationship, even if it's abusive in toxic, started out with a honeymoon phase, and we all go back to those memories. Now. I will say
that healthy couples do that too. So healthy couples often reflect and think about their first dates and the first time they made love and where it was, and maybe their first romantic vacation or their wedding day, and they will exchange stories about their memories and that helps remind them this is different, and this is you in your head spending time swimming back in the past because the present is pretty awful. It's not you and them dreaming together, remembering together,
talking about a future together. It's you going well, if I hang in there, it's going to go back to the honeymoon phase. If I just behave myself, if I do things differently, it'll go back. Mmmm. Here's the big one that I did. All the time, you make excuses for your partner's behavior. Guess what my excuse was, Well, you know
he had a really bad childhood, right. I thought you could heal someone with acceptance and love and just constant permission, but permission for bad behavior, no, and making excuses and rationalizations no. You also tend to over explain all the problems in your relationship to friends and family members. You're smart, your brain is tricky. You're a good talker. Before you know it, you're vincing them that everything's okay when it isn't. And when you do feel
sad, you blame yourself. You say it must be hormones, it must be PMS, it must be I don't know. I'm just going through bad time. Never blame the other person. That means you're in a fantasy relationship, and the main thing is that you've made changes and nothing's gotten better. So I want to tell you that you need to go see a license therapist if you're in a so called fantasy relationship, if you're in love with Longing
and in love with hope. I did. I spent eighteen years on and off in therapy until I learned to heal my anxious attachment disorder and find a secure attachment. So I know you can do it too, but you've got to make the break in. Do it Okay. When we come back, I'm taking your calls and answering your social media questions. The phone number is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred at five two zero one KF five. You've been listening to doctor Wendy Walsh.
You can always hear us live on k five AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,