This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k I AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to Doctor Wendy Wall's show. I'm KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So, I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor, but I'm really obsessed with the science of love. I've written three books on relationships and did a dissertation on attachment theory. In today's show, I want to talk both
about our relationships and also our mental health. We have a guest coming on later who is going to talk to us about a kind of dreaming that I do a lot, lucid dreaming. Apparently it's something you can learn to do. It's kind of an out of body experience. Anyway, It's used to treat all kinds of things. You'll take it for what it's worth. I'm really curious to talk to him. Also, this week, I have to share something
with you. A really big thing happened in my life, something I've been planning for for years and years and years. I got lens replacement eye surgery. I have worn glasses since the fourth grade. I have twenty twenty vision right now. It's crazy. Kayla, you're so beautiful, Actor one, congratulations.
You look beautiful without your or you look beautiful with your glasses, but without those eyes are just hot.
Well, I can't wear makeup for a few weeks and I don't look like Pamela Anderson. You look better. So let me tell you. I here's my theory that as we get older. Well, first of all, let me tell you the phenomenon of why people need They used to call it and still call it cataract surgery. It just means that your lens get cloudy, and it is a lifetime of everything black coffee, red wine, too much food,
too much pollution, antibiotics. I don't know all the things of clouds your lens, but tons of them, and you don't realize it. It's just subtle. You start turning on lights more and more and more. Night driving becomes a little harder, you know. And I would go to my eye doctor every year and I'd say, oh, And then the other thing is I used to wear contacts for years, and then my eyes got pretty dry and I couldn't keep contacts in for many hours, and I would say,
can I get Lasix? Can I get la siks. I used to say that all the time because everyone's getting Lasix. And he said, no, there's a good chance it could disqualify you for the other kind of surgery. That's what he would tell me. Anyway, who knows what the latest news is. But he was so cute because he would say to me, you know, the longer you wait, the better. Let me tell you why. The technology keeps getting better and better, the surgeons keep getting younger and so weird.
Just so I just you know, probably for five years I've been asking for this surgery, and then this year he came to me and said, okay, you're there. You're finally there. You qualify. I'm sending you to a surgeon. There are lots of great eye surgeons here in the city. I happen to go to a woman named doctor Nicole Fram. She didn't pay me to say that. I'm just saying I love her. But there are lots of great eye surgeons,
and the technology has advanced. And I got the kind of lens that insurance doesn't cover, you pay a little extra for and so that I can see up close middle and far away. So like, literally the day after my surgery on my first eye, I could look at my iPhone without glasses, which was really cool. So here's my theory that as we age, you know, our brain
at all times is taking in sensory information. Right, It's pulling in information from site, sound, smell, touch, It's pulling in data constantly, And as we age and our equipment starts to filter things out and we're not getting the full story. I think the neurotransmitters start to shut down. I think it's probably the best thing, certainly for my health to be able to see clearly, because it's sending
more information to my brain. I don't know why, but Kayla, when I put my headset on here, wasn't I saying to you, like, can you turn me down? Can you turn me down? It's too loud?
Yeah, you're You're never like that either, Like you're always perfectly fine with the value.
So do you think my hearing got better because my eyesight got better?
I do think all the senses affect each other, so that might be a thing.
It's the weirdest thing.
Honestly.
I gotta try touch now, I gotta hug ulio closer. You gotta report back to us, so even though I've been Okay, so you get one eye done, right, they do one at a time, your non dominant eye, and then you have a week to recover, settle in and everything, and then you get the other eye done and the other eye. You know, I just did this week, and but I was still able to watch TV and look at my phone like a day after. Uh So we
started watching White Locusts and we're on season three. Now, have you ever watched that series.
White white lotus, lotus, Locus, lotus, lotus, lotus.
It's a flower, a locus. Well, it feels like a locus coming in. Okay, let me just say that. Oh gosh, all right, so there. It is such a study in dysfunctional families, dysfunctional relationships. I could literally just quote from that show all day long and tell you about what not to do in your love lives. Like the family that's visiting from North Carolina with it's Arnold Schwarzeneger Maria Shriver's son is the actor who plays are you allowed to say on the radio?
I'm going to bleep that just in case?
Okay, Well, that's what he's actually called. On the show.
Well, it isn't like a thing that you used to like. It's a cleaner.
It's a thing that women use to clean the internal part of their genitate.
You shouldn't do that.
You shouldn't do it. Yeah, just saying that's what my doctors told me. So anyway, he is referred to as that. Basically, he's a player kind of guy, and I think he's supposed to be in his mid twenties, and he's got an eighteen year old brother who he's trying to, you know, have introduced him to sex and trying hard. And then there's a girl who's clearly separated from the family. She's about to graduate from college and she is not aligning
with their values at all. And you find out wants to actually stay in Thailand and become joins some monastery with some monks. The dad, his entire identity is just around wealth and finances and I can't give it away, but that's all about to fall apart. But the more interesting relationship for me was the girl. I don't know the name of this actress. She was in that series
Sex Education, and she has the big buck teeth. And I can say it because at one point in the show, she meets another girl and she says to the girl, Oh, I like your bathing suit or whatever. The other girl says, I like your teeth, So it's clear her teeth come in the room before she does it. And she's so cute. No, she's so adorable, and I'm so glad she didn't get
them fixed. I think they're so sweet anyway. That actress, she's English, is in a relationship with a totally emotionally avoidant man, and she plays like the cheerleader all the time. She's trying to cheer him up, and she's extra up and extra happy. And I see people like this all the time in life. Here's one partner doing all the emotional work, trying to be the cheerleader, and the other one feeling engulfed or grumpy or angry. I want to
see what happens to their relationship down the road. Because he started to see some Thai therapist and start to get into his child we're learning about his childhood on the show. You know they don't dump all the episodes at once, Kayla. That's the thing.
I hate.
You gotta wait week week, week, week week. I think we're only at week four or five.
Now that's when I let him build up and then just get a good binge in and then when it's all there, just go.
In, get that bingein. Yeah, all right. When we come back, here are some questions that this girl clearly did not ask this man. I'm talking about the characters. I'm white,
not locus Lotus. When we come back, let's talk about some things that if people are meeting for the first time in the early stages of dating, some really important questions they should be asking each other to find out if somebody you know is commitment oriented, has the mental health and the emotional health to have a healthy relationship. Let's talk about these questions when we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k
I 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 Dodor Wendywall Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, the first book I wrote was called The Boyfriend Test. How do we evaluate his potential before you lose your heart? And it was a series of questions that people should be asking themselves about the dude they're dating, and this
could apply to any gender. By the way, the reason why I talked about boyfriend test and questions to ask about him was because apparently men don't buy relationship books, although they should, and gentlemen, if you're listening, the one book you should buy isn't mine. It's a book called Attached The New Science of Love, And then you'll learn
about attachment so that you'll know what I'm talking about. Okay, So in that book, the Boyfriend Test, I talked about a number of questions that you might want to ask on a new date, or information that you might want to find out about somebody in the first few weeks of dating that will give you an indication of whether you know this is going to be a thing, not necessarily if you're compatible with them, but if they're healthy enough to have a healthy relationship. Now, I just want
to remind you of a few statistics. So the average age of first time marriage has been going up every year. It's actually thirty point five thirty and a half years for men right now, twenty eight and a half for women. But hold the train here and listen to what that number means. That means that by the time a woman is twenty eight and a half, half the men are off the market, right, Because that's the mean, that's the average. They're already married.
Now.
The other half that are left are marriageable and marrying late, or they have an avoidant personality style and attachment style, they're afraid of intimacy, or they have trauma in their early life and are going to bring that trauma right into the relationship with you, or they're a player and are never going to settle down. Whatever. There are all kinds of people out there, but the fact that half of them are married means that the most healthy, commitment
oriented ones are off the market. So I would venture to say that the pool of potential mates once you get over thirty becomes well, it's a prickly path, right, Kayla. I mean you've been doing some dating and you're like, oh yeah, oh, don't you crying? All right, So listen up, Kayla and anybody else. Here's some questions to ask on a date. All right, here's the most important question you should ask on a date. And I love to ask you still love to ask it on a first date.
Here's a question, are you in a relationship right now? Now? I know it seems like a totally strange question because you're asking somebody who's clearly behaving like a single person. They're on a first date with you. But it's their reaction to this, I think kind of silly question that's really important. If they get defensive, if they get angry, it indicates that they might actually be dating someone, or
living with someone, or even married to someone. If they get mad that you ask that question, then you got to wonder, why are they defensive right now? If they find the question humorous, then they're going to see it as a really cute joke. This tells you they got a sense of humor.
That's good.
And sometimes you might get lucky and they might answer honestly like, yeah, actually I'm dating two people right now, and then this can open up the whole conversation to well, are you looking for monogamy? Are you looking for one person? And how's it going with those other two? Is one in the lead or the other? I mean, you could almost be their wingman at that point asking about it. But you can find out information because it opens up the conversation and look when you do ask the question,
are you in a relationship? Now? Make it fun, Just pretend like to be deadly serious this, lower your voice, look them right in the eye, and then you know, I have a really important question to ask you. And they lean in what And then you pause and you say, are you in a relationship? Right now? Again? They might do a belly laugh, and then you can feel safe and they go, why are you asking me that? What a crazy question? And they get all defensive. There's information
in that. Okay, here's another important question to ask, maybe even on a first date. What's the longest relationship you've ever had? Remember what I said about the mating pool over the age of thirty, right, you're going to have a lot of people who can't have a healthy relationship. They're the leftover group that are still out there single. So the answer to this question indicate someone's ability to be faithful or at least make a commitment to someone.
And here's my theory, and this is my opinion, just my opinion. There's no research on this. Here we go personal opinion, Auntie Wendy. Here, if that person is over thirty and they haven't had a solid relationship, of at least a year or more. Raise your eyebrows.
Okay.
People who have a secure attachment style, they may not marry in their twenties, but they do practice monogamy and they play house on their way to making a commitment to a long term mate. People with an insecure attachment style, I'm sorry. They're prone to relationship instability, drama, frequent partner changes and so and also those kind of people off and don't look within. They tend to blame their partners when things go wrong. Right, So here's the question. What's
the longest relationship you've ever had? Don't ask it in an accusatory way. Just make it fun and exploratory, like I have a question, So I'll tell you. The longest relationship I've been in is two years. What's the longest when you've been in? You know and get the information?
Are you laughing at me?
Ka? I can't go. It's so cute when I do my real laugh, though, Julio says, I laugh like a witch. Apparently I I can hear that. Ye, apparently I do, all right. Third question, This is the most important question you could ever ask. I wouldn't ask it on a first date. It certainly should not be a conversation opener, but it's the most telling. How would you describe your
relationship with your mother? This is so informative because people tend to model their romantic relationships after the relationship they had with their opposite gender parent. So there are two extremes in an answer here that should raise a bit of a red flag. The first is if they say I hate her, I don't really talk to my mother, I don't like her. Whatever, you got to run because soon that is how they're going to feel about you.
The second extreme, though, even though you think this sounds good, is they say, oh my god, I love my mother. She's amazing, she's my best friend. I call her every day. I do my laundry at her house. She still cooks for me sometimes. No no, no no no. If that's a dude, he already has a wife, you will only ever be his mistress. He'll never be able to separate
from her. And I do want to say, when I was dating, I used to notice a lot of single moms with only child males they almost become the boyfriend. It's very interesting anyway, not a conversation starter. So those are the big three questions. Are you in a relationship now, what's the longest relationship you've ever had, and how would you describe your relationship with your mother? Hey, have you
gone through a breakup recently? I'm sorry it hurts, I know, whether it's divorce, whether it was just time you had to expel that. Mate, Let's talk about how long it really takes to get over an X and the process. Okay, when we come back, you're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Welcome back to the Doctor Hi am six forty Everywhere Radio. You know, I think that probably the biggest pain I've ever felt in my life was not physical pain. It was emotional pain. There's actually some research to say that emotional pain hits the brain in the same place as physical pain. It's terrible, and unfortunately, many people are cautious about getting into relationships, not because they're afraid of love,
but because they're afraid of the breakup. Right, Remember, nobody is going to very few people, Okay, are going to meet early in life. They're going to date the first person they meet, and they're going to stay together until they die. The truth is that our love lives are filled with learning, filled with lessons on how to be a better partner, how to choose better partners, how to relate to partners in different ways, and we have to do that experientially, and part of it is a breakup
right now. I often hear that people say, oh, you know, you should just get back right out there, or you need to take some time to grieve. I don't think there's any one right way to do it, because some people who quote unquote take the time to grieve actually aren't doing the work of going to therapy and learning about their peace in it and learning better relationship skills. Instead, they're just avoiding, right, And you don't learn anything by avoiding.
I always say that relationships are like a gymnasium for the mind. You got to have something to push against, right. You need some resistance in order to be a better person. So there is some research to show that if you do spend some time thinking bad things about your ex, I don't mean wishing them bad things. I mean when you go back through your memories, take off those rose colored glasses and literally say to yourself, well, she did this, and she did that, and he did that and da
da da daha, because that helps your brain. You're constantly being reminded of why it's not good for you, because if you're not doing that thought process instead what your brain is doing, or things like maybe I'm not good enough? Why did it have to break up? Right? Because you're in your pain. I also want to want to explain why breakups hurt so much. So a relationship actually becomes part of us, literally part of our identity. It's like
two brains. They cooperate and collaborate, and they share the thinking and they share the tasks. And so when you break up with someone, you lose half of yourself. Your brain literally has to grow these new areas, both as a social identity and also as an internal sense of self. So it takes a while to get over an X. Now there's a new study that investigated how long it
takes to get over an ex partner. It was published in the scientific journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, and it was trying to ask the questions, is you know if you were with somebody for a long time? Does it take longer? Volunteers answered a range of questions about their emotional bonds with their exes, because remember, some people
are a little more emotionally entwined than others. And you're going to be surprised by how long it took pe people to get over their ex Kayla, if you had to guess, what would you say?
I was actually at a girl's dinner not too long ago, and this one girl said that she broke up four years ago from her ex.
And she's still still talking about.
Him, she's still on him, she still misses him.
Mm hmm. I used to think you should be over it in a year, like it's just like losing your baby fat after pregnancy. You got a year Like I don't know, but I'm wrong, I am wrong.
Okay.
There were three hundred and twenty eight volunteers in this study. Their average age was early thirties. They were about fifty percent women fifty percent men. On average, they had been together with their exes for four point six years, So four point six years is how long they'd been together. And guess how long it took these people to get over four point six years? Nearly four point one eight years.
That was the average.
Oh my goodness's crazy. And it also said for the t hypical person, the bond to an ex didn't completely fade away until eight years later. Eight years they've been together four and a half. That is a long time. I want to tell you if you have to stay connected, like because you're sharing a dog or kids or a
mortgage or whatever, it's gonna take way longer. If you're able to literally go no contact and defriend them, unfriend them, unfollow them, all that stuff online and even like choose not to socialize with some of the mutual friends in case the friends drop information about the X. So it's kind of like make it out of sight, out of mind. I know that if you can do that, you will
get over it faster. But for those of you having gone through a divorce who are still dealing with children, like in my case, for instance, I remember it taking so long to get over the breakup with the father of my children, mainly because I they'd angry for so long.
Is like I found motherhood so hard. I found motherhood just exhausting, trying to be everything right, a provider, a protector, a nurture, etc. My kids were really little one was still breastfeeding, and so in my exhaustion, I would blame his absence, like it's all his fault. You know, he's not paying money and he's not here and blah blah blah blah blah. And then one day, you know that saying resentment is like drinking poison and hoping somebody else
will die. One day I realized that my anger wasn't helping the situation, and I literally said to myself, Wendy, what if you were a widow, what if your husband had died and there was no choice? This is what you had in front of you, and you just had to figure it out. And as soon as I had that thought, everything got easier. Like it was like I was angry because I was. I was wishing and hoping
that there'd be more participation. And then once I was able to get over the breakup much easier after that, once I let go of my own anger. So note to you, let go of your own anger. Hey, when we come back, I am going to my social media. I'm going to answer some of your relationship questions. If you'd like to send me a DM, go onto Instagram producer Kayles checking it out the handle is at Dr
Wendy Walsh. That's at doctor Wendy Walsh. You're listening to doctor Wendy Waalsh Show and I AM six forty 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 Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. Okay, I'm going to my social media. I'm going to be answering your relationship questions. Reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. However, I've had a lot of life experience in these areas and I've written three books on relationships and did a dissertation
on attachment theory. The first thing I want to address is an email I got from a listener who I want to clarify something she wrote to me because I thought to myself, if she thinks I gave this advice, then maybe other listeners think I gave this advice. So all she said is, dear doctor Wendy, because of your advice, I withheld sex to punish my boyfriend for his behavior, and he was flabbergasted that I would do that to him. I didn't think men were actually that easy to control.
There's some words in there. I don't say, when did you say that? I don't say that I talked about I know where the misunderstanding must have come from. One of the things I do preach is that in the early stages of dating, it's a good idea to delay the onset of first sex while you get to know somebody emotionally, because there's research to show that the longer you wait, the better your relationship outcomes later. But within a relationship, there's two words here. I don't like, punish
and control. Our job is not to punish someone we love, nor is it to control someone we love. I mean, I'm glad it worked out for her, I guess, but probably manipulation is not something we should be doing in our relationships. We should be setting boundaries, so I know what she might have been thinking. Well, I set up boundary with my body, which is a little different than punishing somebody. Protecting yourself from feelings of loss after sex, or feeling of pain or hurt that they're not pulling
their weight in other parts of the relationship. Protecting yourself from those feelings is a very different mindset than I'm going to punish them and control them. Just wanted to say, all right, dear doctor Wendy, I am forty five and successful. I decided to this a woman. By the way, I decided to propose to myself. My friend and family think I'm crazy. Can I tell them to back off? Or should I listen to them and wait for the man. I bought myself a very expensive and beautiful ring. I
love it personally. All right, there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, we are all different, and we all have different attachment styles. And you may be absolutely happy being alone and single in your life. And maybe you have a really great support group of friends, although ones that don't like that you've proposed to yourself. Or maybe you're actually feeling angry about the dating pool that you've been in, and so this is a way to reward yourself, as a way to say, I don't need a man.
They're all awful. I'll just marry myself, and you're welcome to do that. You can certainly tell your friends and family to back off. It's none of their business. It's absolutely you and your decision and your life, and you have every right to buy yourself a beautiful piece of jewelry. You've worked hard in your life, and why not treat yourself. What I find interesting is that there's a piece of you from the language you're using here, that it seems is saying that's it. This is closure for me. I
am never going to date again. I'm never going to have a relationship. And that's the thing. I think. We need to stay open. We need to stay open to change. We all change across a lifespan. You need to stay open to meeting new people.
Now.
Staying open is very different than being addicted to longing right and feeling lonely. I do not suggest that you are any less of a person by being a single person. I was a really cool single chick myself. I was a player chick back in the day. I had some fun. I will say that. Okay, so you have every right to do that, but don't practice foreclosure where you're just like, that's it for the rest of my life, because you never know. I met the love of my life at
the age of fifty eight. Can you believe it? A friend of mine commented the other day she goes. I drove by my car. I saw you guys walk in on the street and you were holding hands like teenagers. Like, of course we do. We love each other, right, So just stay open. You never know what is coming your way. And yeah, buy yourself that ring, and yeah, tell your friends and family to back off. But never say never. Okay, never say never. All right, moving on, here's a good
DM Hi, doctor Wendy. I connected with a man and I adored him. When we hung out at his house, he talked so badly to his dog. He said, it's just a dog. Is that indicative of his character?
Actually?
When I wrote that book, The Boyfriend Test, that's one of the questions. How does he treat children, dogs, and waiters? Right? Like seriously? I mean, if it's his pet, is it something he's controlling or something he's caring for? And if you enter his life as his partner, are you something he's caring for or something he's controlling. Yeah, that's a big red flag, and that is indicative of his character. I will say that. All right, If you would like
to send me a question? Three have time for one more? Nope, we don't next week, Okay, send me a question online? You just go to Instagram. That's where we look mostly at Dr Wendy Walsh. At doctor Wendy Walsh, I keep it anonymous whatever. I don't let people know who you are. Send me a relationship question anytime as you can tell. I love weinging on your love life. When we came back, I have a very special guest for you. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Wallh Show on KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app