This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. This is the time of the show where I head into my social media, those dms. You're welcome to send me one. The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, you name it. You could just send me a private message. You should know that I protect your identity. I
change your name and hopefully I don't give out any ID identifying features. And just a reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor, but I have written three books on relationships and I'm obsessed with the science of love. I've had a lot of wisdom and life experience and I'm happy to weigh in on your love life. So let me open up the dms and see when I got here. H Oh, here's a good one. Dear Doctor Wendy. I am no contact with my ex. Should I go off the
grid, no social media, change my gym and possibly work. I just don't want him knowing anything about me anymore. All right, let's stop for a minute and consider what you're saying. I need to know why. Why do you not want him to know anything about you anymore? Are you in danger? Is he somebody who threatened you or hurt you in some way? Are you hiding to protect yourself? Is this a survival strategy for your physical safety? If that is so, then sure, go off the grid.
If it's about being emotionally reminded of somebody, though, hey, you're going to have to deal with it, Okay. I do believe that you should unfollow, unfriend and all that, because you don't want to hurt yourself by being exposed to his posts. Now, changing your gym, I would not change your gym. I would change your gym time because you'll see a whole new faces that you want to see. Anyway, don't change your work. You're doing a lot there for somebody. I don't know what bad happened that
you would even consider that. Unless he works with you and you see him every day all day long, then I might consider I don't know, but the fact that you've gone no contact, which I do recommend for most people, because what happens when you stay in touch immediately after the breakup is you get reminded a lot of them, and you get triggered a lot by them, and you see their posts, and it actually makes the breakup longer and more painful. So research shows going no contact for at least a year is
probably a good idea. On the other hand, at a certain point, you got to live your life and be out there in the world. Now, if the person is going to violate your boundaries and be a bit of a stalker, that's a whole different ballgame. But completely closing down your social media because there's one human out there who you just don't want to be reminded of and don't want them to know about your life just because why are you
embarrassed of your wonderful life? I don't know. Ask yourself if you're doing it for safety. If not, just unfriend him, but don't change so much in your life. Dear doctor Wendy, As a former model, do more attractive women get treated better in committed relationships? Are models more likely to be gifted flowers and bags? Wow? No? No? More likely? No, less likely? Okay, So here's the thing. Everybody has a
mate status and everybody finds somebody at their level. Everybody dreams, people of all genders, of having somebody out of their league of a higher status. So you're assuming here that if a woman is physically attractive, then she is automatically of a higher status than her male mate. Unfortunately, male status is often judged differently. Sometimes it's on looks, but sometimes it's on income,
sometimes it's on position in life. Right, And so the question is our models, do they get more gifts and the handbags if they date a shorter, uglier guy, Sure, because he's working to keeper. That's called mate guarding, by the way. We have to guard our mates so they don't leave. But they're also absolutely beautiful, attractive women who are emotionally abused all the time, because one technique that men use to control women is to make
them feel bad about themselves. They use emotional abuse, they become bullies. They tell them you cann't get better out there, or you're not that good looking, and they mess with their heads. It's a trick, it's a way to make guard. It's not healthy and it's not right. But to make an assumption that just because somebody is physically attractive that they will have healthier relationships or that they will be treated better is a crazy idea, because the
truth is everybody it's a difficult time with relationships. All right, Dear doctor Wendy, I get the silent treatment. Whenever my girl and I have a disagreement. How can I inform her that she's emotionally abusing me without making her feel bad? Ooh, we go to breakdown a few things here. Let's start out with your reference to silent treatment. Yes, I've said it on
my show. It's in all the research. Doctors Gootman at the University of Washington, Julie and John have done enough studies to show that dismissing somebody and giving them the silent treatment is probably the worst conflict resolution style that you can ever do. In fact, I always say the person who's being ignored, the person who's being dismissed. Eventually we'll find somebody who will listen, and that's a lover or a lawyer. Okay, So silent treatment not a good
idea, you know that. But then to say, oh, well, she's how do I tell her she's emotionally abusing me? She's not. You're emotionally abusing yourself by tolerating the behavior. She's not doing it deliberately to hurt you. These are the conflict resolution style that she learned growing up. It's just what she knows. So to stop abusing yourself, you might find a way to say this is a boundary for me. We're not going to do it this way anymore. And here will be the consequence if you try this
on me again. I'll get to that in a minute, because your next question is how do I tell her without making her feel bad? Oh? I'm sorry. So you're responsible for all her feelings. She's like a little puppet for you, and you can make her happy, you can make her sad, you can make her mad. We can't make anybody feel anything. We just present who we are and we talk to them about our feelings and if they have a reaction to our feelings, feelings are different than tone of
voice and behavior. I'm just saying, if they have a reaction to our expression of truth, of our truth, then maybe you've given them the gift of pain that they needed to feel and experience. I don't mean raising your voice. I don't mean hitting them, I don't mean bullying them. I mean just saying it's okay to say. So here's what I think you should say. The next time you have a conflict and she gives you the silent
treatment. You see people giving you the silent treatment are still listening. That's the cool thing. You can still talk to them. So you can say, while she's locked herself in her room or her bathroom, or just busy doing the dishes and ignoring you or whatever, working out whatever, you're just going to say, I see what you're doing. What you're doing is what I've felt before, which is giving me the silent treatment. Because it sounds
like you don't want to have this discussion. However, I want to talk about this. So I'm going to give you a couple hours to cool down and then come back to me and talk about it. And if you are unable to do that, then I'm going to suggest that we see therapy, a therapist to have better conflict resolution style. And if you can't do that, then I'm going to have to leave. It's as simple as that. You just say, I can't keep hurting myself by being around this. It's
about you and your behavior and your reaction. She's not emotionally abusing you, and you're not making her feel bad. Remember that. Okay, well we come back. I'm going to head back to the social media and the dms. If you want to send me one, it's at Doctor Wendy Walsh. 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 Dr Wendy Walsh Show on
KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Let me head to the dms. They're always private, they're always juicy. You know, you can always DM me at d R Wendy Walsh at DODR Wendy Walsh. Okay, dear doctor Wendy says this listener. I am from Nigeria. Oh you must find me on line. And I've been dating a guy in LA when I flew back to see him this time, so that tells me you've flown back and you've seen him before. It was to spend three months with
him. Since I work remotely. Oh cool, bring your computer, bring your job, see your guy. However, I caught him with another woman coming out of his house. I went out hiking alone, and when I got back to his place, I saw her and I left immediately and got a hotel. I can't afford a hotel for three months, and I can't afford to change my flight. I'm completely devastated. My trust is broken. What do I do? Okay, we need to stop right here, because
you need a whole bunch more information. You're visiting somebody in another country who you don't know. Well. You probably haven't met every one of his friends, his sisters, his coworkers, his housekeeper. I don't know. You don't know who this woman is, and why should he be guilty just because you saw someone leaving his house. Now, I know you could confront him and he could tell you eyes, but you'll pick up lots of other information
in the conversation. And I also wonder why you reacted so strongly to run away immediately and not stay and investigate. You see, the way that relationships grow closer is through the bumps. It's when these little ruptures happen that people can get together or not. But you fantasizing and imagining that he's having an affair with another woman while you're sitting at a hotel worried about your money.
Is not going to solve anything. So I would like you to pick up the phone right now and call him and say, hey, here's why I ran. I'm not angry, I'm scared, and could you tell me more about what's happening. I was hoping we're monogamous? Am I wrong in this? Can you help me understand what's happening. That's all you need to do. You need to be an investigator and get way more information. All right, Dear doctor, Wendy H. Says this other listener. I have had
bad luck in relationships, and I know you are happily engaged. It's pretty funny. Happily engaged. It sounds like happily married. Like you're supposed to be happy all the time. To clarify that anyway, this person says, I know you are happily engaged and about to be married. Does your love feel easy or more like work? How often do you fight with each other? I want to know what healthy love is supposed to feel like. First
of all, my heart goes out to you. It's estimated that about forty percent of Americans have what's known as a secure attachment style where they can give and receive love comfortably, and love does feel easy to them. When they meet a partner that doesn't feel comfortable, they move away quickly until they find someone that feels like it clicks easier. But for the rest of us, a good sixty percent of the population, we're either anxious, we're avoidant,
we're disorganized, we're drama queens. We create problems that make things break up. We fear abandonment. So love does feel like work. But I want you to know that I spent eighteen years on and off different times in therapy so that I could learn the skills of what healthy communication and healthy love is. And I highly suggest if you're still questioning what feels right, then you
haven't learned all the skills. And part of the skill is choosing a better partner who is going to be more compatible with you and not getting addicted to relationships that are painful. So your first question, does love feel easy or more like work? I will tell you that until this relationship, every relationship I had in my life felt like work. I was always second guessing them,
I was always psyched analyzing them. They were roller coasters of excitement, and then followed by the lows and the fear of abandonment and anger from me. I definitely had kind of an anxious, ambivalent attachment style, but because I changed, and I think part of the change in me was having a secure attachment with my kids and holding them so close for all those years and being in that no, I mean, kids don't abandon you. Believe me, I'm trying to get the last one out. They don't abandon you.
So I would answer that question by saying, love feels easy to me. Now, that doesn't mean it's happy all the time. How often do we fight with each other? So we've been together almost four years, and I would say we have had probably four what I would call fights. And it's
usually because I mean, he's a lay persons. I like to say, I'm a professional, and so I have this ability to almost act like a therapist in the relationship kind of and say like, well, what was your intention when you said that, because I'll tell you my experience is and what I'm feeling is this. However, there were a few other times where I had a little bit of tequila, or I didn't have enough sleep, or he said something that kind of really triggered me, and then you know,
I'm fighting like a lay person. So yeah, it's not that often, which is great, and the best news is that we're both very skilled in making good repair. Dear doctor Wendy, all my friends are engaged, married or live in girlfriends. I've always enjoyed being single, but now it's starting to feel like I am in the wrong for not having a partner. It's always getting harder to connect with these women who are partnered. I don't want to lose my friends, but I also don't want to get a partner just
to fit in. What do I do? Fascinating? Okay, so there's this new research out that shows that nearly fifty percent of single Americans say they're totally happy being single, and they don't They do not need a romantic relationship hardly. It is because in the past people needed relationships for different reasons. They needed it for economic survival, they needed it to raise children, et
cetera. So, if you can pay your own bills, and if you're happy to have relationships, that aren't you deeply connected and committed and maybe they may involve sex but less romance, or maybe you're just happy to be alone with friends and family. It's entirely up to you. But what you're running up against is the fact that our society is still organizing itself around couplehood.
I'm not going to lie to you. For my eighteen years as a single mother, I was very lonely, especially on Sundays when all my mom friends would go off with their husbands and family. It was like family day and I had nobody to call. My couple friends didn't invite me out with other couples. I was really sort of an outcast socially. So I understand, and you're feeling right that don't you want to keep your friends, You want to stay connected with the social group, but you also don't want a romantic
relationship. The other thing is a lot of those friends try to rush to fix you up constantly. I know that feeling too, So I think you need to have conversations with your friends about what you're experiencing and what you're looking for in your friendships with them, so that you can always have them as social support. I'm sensing from what you said that you're not a loner and
you don't like to be isolated. Most humans do not like that. You want to keep the social support, but you don't necessarily want a romantic relationship, and that is okay. Hey, when we come back, have you noticed how our culture seems to be full of bullies. Sometimes the bullies are on a pulpit called social media. Sometimes they're in our office, or in our church, or in our family. Somehow it's okay for adults to bully other adults, to be hostile, to be angry, to raise their voice.
I don't know what happened to manners, but bullies seem to be everywhere. When we come back, I have a special guest, an author who's what both a therapist, an attorney, and a mediator, who wrote a book called Our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them and How to Stop Them. 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 Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I have a very special guest for us this week, author Bill Eddie. I'd like to call him just an author, but he's got a bunch of other stuff going on in his life. He's an attorney, he's a therapist, he's a mediator. And get this, imagine having this title Chief
Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute. Well, when I read that, Isa, we need to get him on the doctor Wendywell show, Hi Bill Eddie, how are you? I'm great, Thanks so much for having me on. And you are in San Diego? Are you that's right? Guys? Yes, I am so. I love very minute. I love to talk to people that are about that are therapist, your licensed clinical social worker, and also attorneys because you can shed such a light on both how the
law and human behavior interact with each other. But before we get there, what is the High Conflict Institute. Well, the High Conflict Institute was founded with myself in two thousand and eight and a woman who worked with the Arizona court system, and we were both heavily involved with family law and we wanted to train family lawyers, mediators, judges and therapists that worked on cases, especially the high conflict cases, the high conflict divorce and custody. Just all
the messy stuff and how to try to calm it down. So we started that now sixteen years ago and we're going strong. We're busy as ever. Sad to say, there's a lot of high conflict in the world and a lot of people want help with it, and so you work as mediators in helping people through their transition to divorce. Well, what we actually do is training. So I stopped mediation, I stopped practice representing clients and family court.
I stopped doing family counseling to do basically training and consultation. So that's what my focus is now and my business partner, Megan also we both train really actually worldwide at this point, and not just law but human resources, government agencies. The need for tips and innovation in how to deal with high conflict people just keeps growing. That's what we do. We're an education organization. And you know, family lawyers, bless their hearts, they have such
a hard job. Are very well schooled in the law, as are the
judges that work in the family court system. But as you know, dealing with high conflict when it comes to our most intimate relationships and separation, you need a basic knowledge of psychology and attachment theory to understand, like I have this theory, tell me if I'm right that a lot of people with an anxious attachment style, who have a lot of trouble with separation and fear abandonment, use the court system to perpetuate their divorce and drag it on for years
because they can't deal with the separation. Have you seen that? Absolutely right? Absolutely right? And that's part of it. We also see people who just have to be superior to somebody, so they go to court to be superior to somebody or somebody who has to dominate others, and they see the court system as the way to do that. So part of its fear of abandonment, but part of it's those two other reasons too. The court system.
I think of the court system as a playground for people with personality problems, isn't that true? People with personality disorders are the quickest to get a lawyer and take it to court because they're trying to make sense of these situations themselves in their own heads, and so having somebody decide for them helps them make sense of, you know, the chaos inside their own perceptions. Right, Go ahead, Yeah, Well, I was just going to say.
I think that they don't just want to make sense of it. They already have made sense of it in their own mind, and they want somebody in a position of authority to dictate to the other party how it's going to be. So it's really it's really a way to get their way. It's not so much a question as a demand. It's like, you know, your honor, you need to tell her that she's an idiot, or you need
to tell him that he's out of control. And so what we see is the people with personality disorders think they have all the answers, and they use the court to get the judge to impose their answers onto others. Yeah, they want someone to validate what they're experiencing. You know, you mentioned something when people are in conflict. You mentioned that some people want to be superior,
they want to be the winner. And even in long term marriages that are not going through a divorce, this is something that we see a lot when it comes to conflict. And I have always said that it is good conflict if the relationship wins, not one side or the other. Do you agree, excellent? Oh, absolutely, And that's part of the theme of
my book is when when relationships are the happiest and the most successful. So if the relationship wins, both going to win, absolutely right, And sometimes that may mean taking a hit and just saying you're sorry and moving on and keeping the rapport in the relationship. You mentioned your book, I want to make sure we talk about it. Bill Eddie has written a book called Our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them and How to Stop Them.
Well, this is a pretty timely time for this book to come out because I think adult bullies are so prevalent in our society right now. Why did you decide to write this book? Well, I actually decided to write it starting at the end of twenty twenty when the pandemic was going going strong and there was so much kind of anger in the world and people bullying each other at the store if they went to the store. You know, different points of view about vaccines, about mass about the pandemic. But I also
because I was pretty much grounded. I do a lot of traveling and speaking, and I was grounded for the first year of the pandemic, so I have a lot of time to really think and reflect and kind of put together. I'm seeing the same patterns of behavior and the families I work with in the workplace, disputes I work with, in the legal cases I work with, and I really wanted to connect the dots for people so they know you're going to end up with a bully in your life sooner rather than later,
and you need to be warned. Yes, yes, and that's what I believe now. It didn't used to be the case, but now that's the case, and I wanted people to be warned but also know that there's hope and ways to deal with this. So when we come back, we have to go to a break right now, Bill, When we come back, I want to talk specifically about some tools and skills that we all can use when we are faced with bullies, whether it's in our families, in our
workplace, or even online. So stay with me. You are listening to the Doctor Indy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. The book is Our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them, How to Stop Them. The author Bill Eddie, will be back after this. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty Welcome back to the Doctor Indy Wall Show on k I AM six forty the Home Stretch. I'm always here for you every Sunday from seven to
nine pm. Our guest Bill Getti is the author of our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them, How to Stop Them Now. You had said before the break, Bill that at some point everybody is going to be faced with a bully. Where do we find these bullies? Mostly? Where do they crop up in our lives? And that's the surprising thing.
It could be anywhere. Could be on an airplane, could be on a sidewalk, could be at a school meeting, could be in your workplace, could be someone that comes to your house, someone that does so work for you, someone in a volunteer group you're involved with, someone in your church. What we're finding is they can pop up anywhere because it's personality based rather than location occupation. It's not that predictable, which is why I want people
to know recognize these patterns of behavior because they may pop up anywhere. At baseball games, I was just talking with somebody, you know, the kids and the team, and there's this parent that's screaming bloody murder at the kid and the coach, so it could be anywhere. So how do you define a bully and what are the most common patterns of behavior. Well, the definition I use I've been working with high conflict personalities in the legal field for
much of the last forty years and family therapy and mediation. So we define high conflict personalities as number one, a preoccupation with blaming others and not taking responsibility, as a lot of all or nothing thinking it's my way or the highway free is unmanaged emotions that really can take over for it is extreme behavior, sometimes doing things that ninety percent of people would never do. So that's high conflict personalities. Now, bullies are the most high conflict personalities. They
add two things to this. One is a drive to dominate others, to create when lose relationships where they're in charge, et cetera. But the other is sometimes to destroy others, to destroy your reputation or we see people physically a saw I mean talk about domestic violence that some people don't survive that. So it's a drive to dominate or destroy is the primary ways I define bullies. You mentioned all the places we might run into them, which is everywhere
in our lives. I've noticed in the last few years with cancel culture, the number of online trolls, people who are seemingly in their real life world, rational calm people go a little nutty online sometimes and don't think about the consequences of those words. Why is this happening? Yeah, so online you really miss about ninety percent of communication. It's a very small part. There's
all the nonverbals you miss. And what I believe is when you're talking with somebody, let's say, face to face or a few feet away, you're not going to be talking like that because they're going to slap you, or they're going to storm out of the room, or something's going to go wrong. But the other thing is you feel better when you're around somebody usually, and so somebody's listening to you, you're going to talk reasonably. You're not
going to be screaming at them. But online all those kind of automatic filters, body language, tone of voice stuff evaporates. So I've been involved with organizations where when they talk on you know, do email conversations, people start getting nasty. We have a phone call, they calm down, We get on Zoom, everyone's nice, we get together and one's happy to see each other. So online really screens out a lot of positive interaction, and I
think that's why people feel safe to vent. But there's a second thing. A second thing. I read some research which I put into my book that some people looked at online hostility, basically bullying online, and what they found is it isn't everybody. That there's a small percent of people who actually tend to be hostile in person, but they're louder online. They feel safer online to really make a lot of noise, to say extreme things, and so
reasonable people tend to get out of the conversations faster. And so you see is these online conversations that deteriorate into a lot of negativity. But it's this smaller group of people that are promoting the negativity, not everybody. So it's
a small group doing a lot of posts exactly. Yeah, And what's interesting online is they always try to tell you everything's terrible, and that hooks our emotions and they're telling you and that's one of the biggest things to be suspicious warning sign when someone tells you there's a crisis heads up, especially online, they want something from you. So that's one of the first warning signs. So are there certain kind of personality types who are more vulnerable to being bullied
by others as adults. Well, I've struggled with looking at that, And what I think is that bullies try out bullying everybody, but people who are more passive, not very assertive, maybe become more of a target because the bully can get away with that, And so a more passive personality may be more at risk, but I think everybody's at risk at the start because they
try it out on everybody, on everybody. And may I have a certain rule of thumb that I have learned through my many, many decades of being a human being, and that is when someone one of the things I've learned is I used to ignore bullying behavior until it escalated, and then it was too late to exert my boundaries because I had set up a system where my
silence was perceived as permission. So I'm a big believer in, very early on being clear about boundaries so that most bullies walk away when they're dealing with someone who's hard to deal with from the beginning exactly. And that's one of the strong things I tried to say in the book is you need to hm tervene, sooner and firmer and if necessary gets help that when you let it go, You're absolutely right, that reinforces them. They go, oh,
I've got somebody here. I can trap them. They're going to have to just listen to doing it my way, and that's not true. Being assertive is the solution, not being aggressive, where you become not aggressive. I always in the metaphor I have is I dig my heels in. I don't step forward. I dig my heels in so they can't push goods me. So we know online bullies who are people who are hostile online, we can just block them, and I hope everybody knows how to use that block button
and how to just get rid of people and report them. But in the real world, what is your best advice? We only have a little bit of time left. Your best advice for dealing with an adult bully, Well, the first is to tell yourself it's not about you, it's about ben. No one deserves this. The second is, if it's safe to speak up and say, hey, you can't talk to me this way, you can't treat me this way, you can't do this around me. Third would
be to talk to somebody else get some help. Fourth would be have bystanders chime in and say, hey that's enough, buddy, Hey that's enough. And then setting limits whatever they are organizationally or personally, like ending a conversation. But the next thing is imposing consequences. If bullies know there's a consequence, then they're going to steer clearer of you. Right. They test your
words. I always say, like a two year old will say to their mom, I want to have a cookie before dinner, and you'll say no, no, no, don't go near that cookie jar. And they don't pay attention to your words. They need to see they need to reach for the cookie jar and lift up the lid for you to go no, I said no, and put your hand on it and put it up above the fridge. And so the bullies will do the same thing. They will test you, and they then they want to find it if your words really have
meaning, and they're looking for a behavioral consequence exactly. And that's what people have to learn to do. We all, I think, have to learn to be more assertive about setting limits and having consequences, and then I think some of the bullying behavior we're seeing will get ratcheted back. But I think this is the message everyone needs to learn. We all need to do this.
Oh Bill, I've been talking about boundaries for decades here. Thank you so much for being with us. The book is called Our New World of Adult Bullies, How to Spot Them and How to Stop Them. It goes on sale next week and you can find it, I'm sure anywhere online and in bookstores. Bill Eddie, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, and that brings the Doctor Wendy Wall Show to a close. I'm always here every Sunday from seven to nine for you, and you can
follow me on my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh. It's always my honor to be here for you. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendywall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.