@DrWendyWalsh is covering icks, getting over an ex and questions couples need to ask each other.

Now it can be triggered by you've just learned something new, or you've witnessed something about them that just turned you off. But it's always the ick is when you're all you're you know, thought the person was great and then there was this one thing. Now, as far as dating goes, let me tell you the top things that give people of all genders the ick. Number one. Bad hygiene, Okay,

dirty fingernails, bad breath, body odor, greasy hair ew. I remember my husband Julio told me once he had a date with a very beautiful actress who shall be unnamed. And on the second date she had dirty fingernails. I mean, she could have been gardening, we don't know, but he said he couldn't see her again. Just turned him off so much. He's very clean guy. Dirty fingernails that did it for him. But sometimes it's something emotional like an

ick might be somebody who's just overly eager. They're acting too obsessed too soon. They're love bombing and using the words I love you after just a few texts, a few dates and non stop texting planning a wedding in their head. Ladies, are you doing that? Some guys do it too. Here's one that used to drive me crazy. Pour table manners like chewing with their mouth open, slurping, talking with food in their mouth, and along the same lines,

being rude to service personnel. That is a particular tender spot to me because I spent a lot of years waitressing in my early life and when people treated me as less than ugh, I hated it. So I'm really triggered if they don't treat weight staff well. But also another ick might be like cringey social media behavior, jim selfies stop it, you guys, stop it? And the empty shirt off in the bathroom mirror selfies no stop it okay, or awkward TikTok dancers that you shouldn't be doing. Nope, nope,

nope okay. So some people say, well, is that a red flag if they do that? And we're talking slang terms in modern culture. Now, there's a big difference between an ick and a red flag, And the biggest difference is the feeling of repulsion. So a red flag is looking for signs that somebody's not really mentally healthy and might not have the capacity for a long term committed relationship.

But the ick. Having the ick means that you've suddenly lost sexual attraction to them because of something you've observed, right, And it can be very like instinctive and visceral and all of a sudden, and sometimes it's hard to pinpoint about where this ick feeling is coming from. Now, the question, when you feel the ick, should you always consider it a red flag and leave or should you ignore it and push through? Well, that is the million dollar question.

Is it you or is it them? There are people out there who are afraid of intimacy, afraid of commitment, and so what they're doing is looking for this one little thing that drives them crazy about somebody's then God, they're not for me, right, So ask yourself if you had a pattern, are you getting the ick a lot? Because if you are, then maybe the problems you not them. So let's say, maybe, maybe maybe this does sound like

you you do have a feeling of the ick. I'm going to give you a little bit of advice about how you can move on from it and kind of get over it. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself, is this a shallow ick or a deeper incompatibility ick. A shallow ick might be a cringy texting style, a bad outflit, a weird laugh. A deeper incompatibility thing might be you know, emotional immaturity, really bad values, or somebody with such an anxious attachment style that the

neediness feels just engulfing. Right, So, if it's a deeper incompatibility thing, I understand, red flag, move on. But if it's a shallow ick, let's try to reframe it a little bit, maybe give it some time. I got to remind you that in the early stages of dating, people are hyper sensitive and if you can just relax a little bit, get to know the other parts of them, then it might kind of fade away, And while you're

doing that, you better shift your focus. You know, whatever we watch grows bigger, So if you've now become obsessed with that ick and trying to catch it and see it again, then it will just grow bigger and bolder and drive you more crazy. So yes, you can ignore it and focus on all the new positive things that you see that are emerging. So maybe you're finding that they might chew with their mouth open, but they're really emotionally available, or their values really match yours, or they're

just really kind. The ick can kind of fade, right, And is it okay to say, hey, you're doing this thing is driving me crazy? Be cautious. I mean, if this is a habit, like something like, hey, you know, in my family, I've always been taught to chew with my mouth closed, let's try that together. That's one thing. But if it's something they can't change about themselves, like

bad teeth. Although I did refer one date to a dentist once, I didn't go out with him after that, but I did refer him to the dentist, I don't know. I'm just saying, tender, be tender, Okay, hey, when we come back, Can it really take eight years to get over an ex? New research says, perhaps you are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

to get over this pain, this feeling of loss, this grieving. Well, a new study has just come out that says, are you sitting down that it can take eight years to fully get over an X. The researchers found that there are two major factors that impact the timeline of breakups. Number one is a partner's attachment style, and number two

is how much contact somebody has with their ex. I should say that the research showed that the average amount of time and nobody's ever averaged, but the average amount of time it takes to completely get over somebody is about four and a half years. Honestly, Look, when I broke up with the father of my children, there were two years of anger, two years of struggle, and it was only like literally like about the maybe like the

fifth year. Well, I remember thinking, stop being so angry, because that's staying in connection with him on some level. Now it's with anger, not love. But if you imagine that he wasn't alive and you know something happened to him, and you were all on your own, how would you behave what would you think? And as soon as I got to that place then I knew I was over him. I was just like, Okay, it's all on me, this

single motherhood. I'm gonna figure it out, right. So let's talk about, first of all, how much contact somebody might have with their ex. They are all kinds of reasons why people have to stay in touch with their ex. Maybe they're raising a family together, they're co parenting, maybe they're still running a business together or working together, or maybe they're even just sharing a dog, right, sharing a mortgage there be. I've heard of couples breaking up and

even trying to live in the same house. I don't recommend it, I really don't. So people who have a lot of reason to stay in contact, the length of their full detachment is going to take a lot longer. Now, I just want to pause here to say, sometimes people, especially when it's marital divorce, stay connected with their partner, but now through conflict, they go back to court over

and over. I'm telling you, the family lawyers make a ton of money off people who have an anxious attachment style because they don't want to fully let their partner go. So there's always some court case coming up. There's always something, right, it's it's staying in touch through conflict now instead of love. So people who have an anxious attachment style might find themselves slipping into a lot of back and forth, right, because their anxiety makes them create bids to bring their ex closer.

don't like the feeling of losing that mate right. And one of the reason, one of the ways, by the way that people with an anxious attachment style, I don't know how I know this except that I used to live it inside of me, is they might sort of keep a cadre of potential mates around so that there are people they can call whenever they're feeling lonely or abandoned. So it might be some incoming mates, it might be the current person they're dating, and they might keep a

loose string attached to that X as well. It's because they want to maintain Psychologists would call it proximity seeking behaviors. So so they want to keep their X and these other potentials all in one orbit, so if one falls out they've got another one they can rely on in some way. Now, some people will say to me, is the breakup worse because I didn't see it coming? Because I was completely blindsided? It was a surprise. Well, I

gotta say. Research on breakups shows that there's pretty much always one partner who psychologically checks out before the other one, and then the other partner feels blindsided, right that they didn't see the early signs that were there. What was happening is one partner was checked out, and what do they do when they're being checked out? It could go on for years, by the way, they could be going to the gym and getting ready for the mating marketplace.

They could be building more social support by hanging out with their same sex friends more. They could be working more, just bearing themselves in their work. They could be out getting plastic surgery to getting themselves ready for the mating marketplace. But they're all these things that might happen over a couple year period before the breakup actually happens, and the one who's feeling kind of alienated and seeing this happening is kind of like, you know, this is going to

blow over. Things are going to get better because there's no actually active fighting. The reason why is because the other persons made their decision. They're on their way out the door, right So I will tell you that always somebody feels blindsided, and I don't think necessarily that that makes the breakup take life longer. I do want to say that if you are ruminating about an AX, if you can't get them out of your head, see a

licensed therapist. Remember when we're hurting the most, we're usually growing the most. My therapist used to call it fertile ground. It's fertile ground to be able to excavate to figure out what's going on inside. So you know, make sure that you attend to those feelings. Those feelings are telling you something. And I want to end with two important things. One is research supports the idea that after a breakup,

going completely no contact does speed up healing. So that means unfriend unfollow block might mean changing coffee shops, jim gyms, health clubs, dry cleaners if you risk running into your ex. There's no timeline on personal growth. Some people heal for the first time in their life weeks before their death. Some people do it in their twenties. Some people tend to get over things quickly. Other people take much more

time to process and heal. Nobody's keeping score here. I want you to take I want you to take the time that you need to get better. But I do want to say, don't isolate yourself. Get surround yourself by people who love you, and go see a therapist. They can really help you sort things out. Hey, when we come back, assuming you're not in a breakup, there are some questions that long term, happy couples ask each other.

A version of these questions and let's talk about these five questions that couples should always be asking each other when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

questions to each other. Interesting enough, there were no surprising answers for us. So it's because we have similar kinds of conversations on the regular. But I want to share with you. I'm paraphrasing some of these questions. I'm putting some doctor Wendy wisdom into them. But I want to talk to you about these subjects that we should be talking about as our relationships progress. The first question is during times of conflict, the question of simply, how can

we solve this? I want to break this down for a reason. How can we solve this? There are two very important words to that question. How can we solve this? Three words? Actually, how as soon as you get your brain out of the painful emotional place of blaming you did this, and you said that, and you promised you would do that, and you didn't even and it wasn't

my fault. I didn't meant. When you can get out of that place and put the issue at hand in your prefrontal cortex as a problem to solve, how huh? Now it's a math problem. It's a realis cube. How can let me think? How can we do that? Okay, but the other next important word is can? How can? How can we? Can? We? We can? We can? Can? We remember the mind Here's words were basically hearing that we can, we can fix this. But the biggest, most important word in the question how can we solve this

is the word we. And I have to share something with you. This week, my husband and I were talking about an issue, an issue having to do with me, my family, my life right because he's second marriage, late in life, he's got his family, I got my family.

We keep everything separate. But when I brought up something, he said, well, we've got some work to do, and all of a sudden, I felt this relief come over my body with the word we, because I thought I was sharing a problem that was all on me to solve, and there he was taking some ownership of this problem. So there is lots of research to support the idea that couples who share the work of problem solving within their relationship and believe that they both have a role

in conflict resolution are much more healthy. Okay, that's question number one. How can we solve this? Write that down. Number two, how can I help you feel emotionally safe? You know, people all the time will say to me, oh, you know, my husband or my wife is so avoidant and they won't talk about their feelings. And you know, if you nag them and say, you know, talk, I need you to talk, you know. But instead simply say how can I help you feel safer? How can I

help you feel emotionally safer? They might say, stop asking me so many questions, that's what you're supposed to do. But when we talk about emotional safety, we mean feeling seen, feeling heard, and being respected. Right, So if somebody is trying to explain something, you might say something like, oh, I hear you, I hear how hurt you are, or oh it sounds like you're feeling really overwhelmed at work. Give that empathy so that they can feel safe emotionally

opening up all right? Question number three, how do you feel loved these days? That's a good one, right, because at the beginning of somebody's relationship it's all about touch and sex and compliments and everything else. Then you get into the work of life and relationships, and also people are changing and growing. Maybe your partner needs something else, some kind of instrumental care, you know, like I need you to run more errands, I need you to take

the kids to school once in a while. I would feel really loved if you just made the bed or did the laundry once in a while, took some burden off me. That becomes the expression of love. How do you feel loved these days? I will tell you that one of the ways that both Julio and I I express love to each other. And I know it sounds so sappy, but it's just really true. We're just maybe we're raised with good manners, me being the Canadian whatever,

him being raised well by his mom. Is that we just express gratitude a lot for even the smallest things. We say thank you, we say I appreciate you, and that is how we express love more than but you might have your own way. Question number four. You need to ask your partner this, how do you think you've changed since we first met? And how can I support that change? You? See, the thing is, relationships are dynamic.

They're moving and changing at all times. I like to think of them as a ven diagram, you know, those two overlapping circles where you've got two autonomous, independent people and then overlapping in the middle is the relationship. But it's important that somebody is allowed to change and grow because that makes the relationship more interesting and exciting. So ask your partner, how do you think you've changed since we first met? And how can I support that change?

And here's one of my favorites. I love this question so much. If you've been with somebody for a long time, you know, at the beginning you are filled with hopes and dreams and plans, and you guys talked about it all the time. And now you're in the business of life. Do you still dream together? What are your current dreams? What do you talk about building or growing or moving or doing together? And if you haven't been dreaming together, I'm afraid your relationship is going to start to die.

Human beings love to look forward. We love hope, we love change, we love novelty, we love newness. And when with your partner, the two of you can dream and plan together, even if it's a small thing, planning a vacation, or maybe it's planning a move, planning a new business, planning to redecorate the house. I don't know. Whatever your dream is to do together then that can help sustain you.

I wish you the best love this week. After you finished listening to my show, I want you to go to the person in your life who you love the most and thank them for being them. It's always my pleasure to be with you every Sunday from seven to nine. Sometimes we end a little early because we have bigger,

better stuff to do. But you can always listen to any part of the Doctor Wendy Walls Show that you miss by just going to the iHeartRadio app downloading downloading the app and then just searching my name, doctor Wendy Walsh. And there's a little button at the top called the preset button. Just hit that preset button and then anytime you open the app, there's anything you missed. There's the shows you missed. But I'm always here for you every

Sunday night. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls's 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 s seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,