@DrWendyWalsh is offering her Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice.

to weigh in on people's love lives. I have written three books on relationships, I did a dissertation on attachment theory, and I've been reading about and writing about the science of love for three decades. So if you want to send me a DM, Kayla is checking Instagram. If we don't get to it today, then she'll save it and we could answer it on another week. So just the handle is at Dr Wendy Walsh at Doctor Wendy Walsh. Ooh, I'm scrolling through here and we are starting with something

very sensitive. Dear Doctor Wendy. My wife tests did positive for an STD and she swear she hasn't cheated. I tested negative. Could the results have shown up late? Or is she lying to me. We've been together for two years, dating for one and married for one. All Right, this is a question for a medical doctor because I suspect that there are certain STDs that lie dormant and then become somemptomatic later. I also suspect that there are ways women can pick up things from what you know, other

ways things that touch them. I suspect you also did not say which sexually transmitted infection she had, So I'm gonna say, don't one hundred percent jump to conclusions until you both go to a doctor and maybe go to a couple's therapist and talk about this, because this is a huge one and you don't want to lie there thinking that you can't trust her for the rest of

your marriage. Right, this is a big moment of opportunity for you guys to get in the office of a licensed marriage and family therapist and really talk about all your feelings, even if it's just to work out your

feelings of fear and potential betrayal that you're experiencing. Right, Remember this story of Oh, that sad, horrific story of the woman in France who had been married for many, many years to the guy and he was drugging her at night for like a decade and having men come in and have sex with her in the middle of the night, and she never knew. And she was going to all these doctors and getting STIs and they couldn't figure out why.

Oh that's interesting. Why do you believe that? I just want to know if I should proceed with this person and his consistent advances. All right, So I think you want to find out more about the nature of this relationship. Remember, sometimes the most securely attached people, even after they break up or divorce, stay attached to their ex because they're looking for a new stepping stone. Right, You're the stepping stone to their next secure attachment. You, but there might

be some overlap in between. I don't mean dating both of you, but I mean it takes a while for you to become their person. I mean, in some ways, I sometimes think people who are still attached their exes have a better ability to attach than those that are the lone wolves out there, who are so autonomous, so independent that they have nobody around them. On the other hand, why do you think there's still you believe you said that there's still love there. So is he speaking too

highly of her? Have they just broken up recently? Do you sense that he wants to get back with her. I mean, there's a lot more information that I would need, but I'll tell you I have broken up with guys in the past who are a little too cozy with their ex So I was like, why, don't mean I'm just you have a wife. I guess I'm just the mistress.

I don't know. I remember like pulling in the garage of this guy and his car in his car, and the headlights shined on a sign on the wall that was the name of their married name, mister and missus whatever. I guess it was some sign from like it was his last name, like the blankety Blank's house, and I said, why do you have that sign? He goes, Oh, it used to be the sign on my house when I was married. I go, why do you still have it? You've been divorced for many years? He said, gotta know,

just seems weird to throw away. Right. I'm like, all of a sudden, I'm Mariecondo on this guy. I'm like, you got to get rid of that stuff. It exists. You come into your garage every day and you still see the sign that you're still the blankety blinks together. That wasn't their last name. I'm making it up, all right, Dear doctor Wendy. Ooh, a question about jobs and finances. This is always hard. I've been with my boyfriend for

three years. Well where are you going from here? I don't know how old jo You didn't say, okay, he knows my career goals. He makes about three hundred thousand dollars a year. Oh, very good. I finally got a job offer with the same amount of money as him. Ooh nice. And to my surprise, instead, I know it's coming. And to my surprise, instead of being proud of me, he chastised me and told me I'm too excited about money and I didn't earn it because someone just gave

it to me. What the heck was that? He always said he wanted me to win in life, and then he acted jealous when I started winning. I think we should break up. What do you think? Well? I think you want to help him get in touch with his feelings first, instead of breaking up after three years, just simply say it sounds like my new job and my new salary has brought up a lot of feelings for you. Let's talk about what you're experiencing. Or Hey, I was hoping you would feel really proud of me, but it

feels like you feel competitive with me. Am I reading it right? These are the things you say. Listen. One time I did a guy. He was a restaurant tour. I had been to cooking school. I found this cute little space. I mean, I was just dreaming. I wasn't even doing it, and I found this cute little empty restaurant space. I said, oh, my gosh, I should open a little restaurant there, because you know, I just finished

cooking school. And he made a comment like you, like you've never been in the restaurant business, Like it's just so like, there's no way that I could ever do that, and I thought, wow, can you imagine being that insecure? Instead of saying that looks like a good space, I can advise you I've been in the business a while. That's cool. Instead of encouraging somebody and helping them, we just like shot me down. Yeah I dumped him, just saying I dumped him. Hey, when we come back. I'm

going to continue to answer your social media questions. If you do have a DM for me, send it on my Instagram. Send me a DM slid into my DMS. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. You're listening to the Doctor Andy Welsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

with me the day he met me. At least he told me this. Okay, just want to stop everybody right there. Love at first sight is not a thing. It's called lost at first sight. And he's just got a surge of neuro hormonies that made him think it's love. Okay, she continues, We didn't work out, but now we're back to dating. I'm in love with him, but now he's acting avoidant. It bothers me. I feel secure and he's avoidant. When he was secure, I was avoidant. Can this ever

work out? Well? It could work out if you could talk to him about these things instead of me. No. What I mean is that everything in a relationship that feels difficult should be commented on instead of playing a game like, oh well, I'll just act avoidant and see if he'll turn around and then he'll chase me or whatever. Okay, the first three, four or five days, sure, but you know This is like you're going retrosexual here. You're getting

back with an ex, so you need to say. This is what I would say if I were you, I would say, at a moment of tenderness, I would say, hey, it's really interesting because when we dated three years ago, you told me you fell in love with me right away, and I know I didn't reciprocate the way you deserve. And now I'm here and feeling those feelings. But I'm wondering if you're feeling any differently. Can we talk about this? That's all you say, and it opens up the whole conversation.

You can do this, bring it up your question. Can this ever work out?

person is their secure base. It is the person they would call at two in the morning if they had chest pain. It is the person they would call in an emergency to drive them to the airport. It is the person who's home they might sleep in after they've lost their home in a fire. Now, you said it yourself. It's too early for her to stay with you, but you don't want to lose her. She went to a place that she remembers historically was a place of safety.

But if they're divorced, then for sure it's not her. Excuse me, it's not her place of safety. Now, So here's what you need to do. You need to support this because you can't offer this, and you need to say it. Say something like this. You know, I would love to have you move in with me, but it feels kind of awkward because we don't know each other well enough. But I want you to know I'm enjoying getting to know you and I really care about you. So I want to help you in as many other

ways as possible. So you've got to eclipse his help. You've got to figure out what you can do. How can I help you? Are there form fillings, phone calls, insurance companies, lawyers. You got to call like get on it. Be her partner in this as she solves the tragedy of her life. You need to be her emotional partner. He may be a roof over her head, but remember she left him, okay, and she doesn't want to be there, but it does feel like it. I mean you said

I feel too early. I don't know how long you've been seeing her, but be on her side, be her partner, help her get her life back. All right? Moving on, here's another DM. Okay, Dear doctor Wendy. I've been dating my guy for three months and he's never invited me back to his place. We even were there, were out for drinks until two a m. Ten minutes from his place, and once we were done, he suggests we go back to my place, which was forty five minutes away. Is

this a red flag? Booh boah, whoa, whoa, it's red sirens. It's red flags, it's red lights going off. It's a lot of red happening here. First of all, I hope you're not sleeping with him. You would have sex with a man, and you haven't even seen like is decorating.

Oh my goodness. You need to check out his digs first, because if it ever goes anywhere, he's gonna be moving into your place, or you're into his way, you're gonna be If it goes somewhere, you're gonna have all his trash with you, his bad decorating, his smelly sweat saw. I'm imagining the worst, the trash that's growing, the mold around the shower. No, you need to check it out,

you know. I remember a few years ago I met a woman and she was quite affluent, and she met a guy who was as successful as she was, and she was very excited. They had I don't know, four or five dates out there in the wild, and then she said, I wanted to go see his place. And I saw his place and there were so many stains on the carpet and it was just it was big, but it wasn't decorated well and it was just so gross. And I said, well, you can look at it one

of two ways. It can either be like, he needs a woman, for sure, there's space for you to take over and fix that up, or do you want to rehab project right? I mean, sometimes I don't like it when guys are too independent and too perfect with their place, because you're like, what do you need me for right. But on the other hand, I don't want to have to do a remodel on everybody's life. So you need to see their cave, see their cave. They should want

to see your cave. And obviously your cave passed a tesk. Is he driving forty five minutes to two in the morning to get to your lovely cave? It's a red flag. It's a red flag, definitely. All right, where are we going when we come back? Oh my gosh. So one of the reasons why people worry so much about falling in love and dating people is they're not actually worried about falling in love. They're worried about the pain of

the breakup. That's what they're worried about. When we come back, let's talk about all the main reasons why relationships break up, because if you know that, then maybe you could prevent it. Right, Let's talk about reasons relationships end when we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty one live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

makes love so terrifying. And what's really interesting is there are only a handful of reasons of why relationships end, and there are some things we could do to literally prevent it if you understand ahead of time. Uh oh, these are the land minds. These are the things, according to statistics, where relationships are most likely to break up,

whether it's a divorce, breakup, whatever. So let's talk about what happens down the road after dating, after courtship, maybe after marriage, or after moving in together and the day to day relationship stuff comes up. These are the things that cause relationships to break up. Number one less sharing, when partners stop sharing their feelings, their vulnerable needs, their concerns. That's when misunderstandings can happen. And when you don't speak

your emotions, there can be like a build up. Maybe somebody's just giving somebody the silent treatment, which there's tons of research to show that is the worst conflict style ever. Giving somebody the silent treatment and the lack of overall communication can make small problems feel much bigger. There's so much research to support the idea that the thing that keeps long term committed people together are open, honest conversations.

This is what keeps people close. Emotional intimacy is the glue. So when people get busy, they're in day to day relationship. Okay, you go in there, what's the schedule. We'll see you Sunday for this. This is happening now. Okay, you're going to pick up the kids. Great, are you cooking? And you're stopping by the grocery store and before you know it, no one's talked about their needs. You know, one of the things my husband, Julio and I do a lot as we go for long walks. We like to walk.

We hold hands when we walk, and something magical happens not all the time, but often we just talk not about schedules, but about our feelings, our goals, our growth. Somehow it's just easier to talk about things when we're just walking along holding hands. But we do do that. Right. Here's another thing I mentioned, schedules that often ends relationships. Boredom. Boredom, boring schedules. You see, healthy, happy relationships require two things. Stability, right.

That means that feeling of security that comes out of stability, knowing the person's always going to be there. And novelty. So when people get in long term relationships, they stop the spontaneous dates, the sweet gestures of love, the surprises. All that gets pushed aside because you're busy with your everyday responsibilities and all the stability side that you have to create novelty. You have to go different places, see your partner in a different place. Couples need to continue

to make things fun and fresh. And yes, that's the quote unquote work of a relationship. Right, Boring schedules, boredom, it'll kill a relationship every time. Oh here's another one. Maybe you have in laws and you know about this, or busybody friends telling you leave him, leave her, external interference. Look, family members and friends don't always have your best interests at heart, So never ever let other people make decisions about things going on in your relationship between you and

your partner. Right, It's really important that the two of you are a unified front against the world, and that includes family, it includes friends. So external interference can sometimes cause breakups. And how about just busyness? I mentioned boredom before, but how about busyness. Sometimes couples are so busy just getting through life. It's when life eclipses couple time and they no longer have any quality time. You know, I mentioned our long walk are our quality time. They really are.

But it's important that you don't get yourself so busy that you forget to schedule time alone. Here's one of my favorites, and this is supported by research. One of the most common things that breaks people up is couples that don't have enough arguments. Now, stay with me. We're not talking about knockdown, drag them out, yelling, screaming fights. We're talking about daily border skirmishes, little tiny conflict resolutions that happen all the time. You see, what happens is

if you don't work out all these little things. If they get ignored avoided, they don't go away. They get buried underneath and guess what they build up? Oh yeah, like a volcano and they irerupt later. So the healthiest couples actually have the most frequent conflict, but it's not ever a big fight. It's just stating their peace and

negotiating their boundaries constantly. Another sad one that ends many relationships are just divergent life goals, whether the goals have to do with a family, whether one wants to have children or not, career, whether you've talked about the couple moving for one person's career or another, financial goals, maybe

even values like religious values. You see, so many couples get swept up in courtship, romance, wedding planning and they haven't really been realistic with each other about their individual life goals, and they will break up because their goals are just so different. And finally, and this is a big one, long term, happily married people still respect their partners,

They still value their partners. When you start to devalue your partner and your brain like I could do better and lose, they feel ignored, They feel taken for granted, This is when things erode, because a happy relationship is in your own head. You know, you might look at other people who say, oh, we're really happy together, or you might be like, I wouldn't that's not no, it wouldn't work for me, but it works for them. And if they believe they're happy, if they believe their partner

is great, then they are. Life is a self fulfilling prophecy and it's an inside job, all right. So remind yourself every day of why you value your partner. Hey, have you been single for a while, Maybe you went through a breakup, maybe something's going on in your life. When we come back, let's talk about when is the time to get back into the dating game. When are you ready for love? We've got it. When we come back.

You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Wells Show and KFI AM six forty we Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

be ready for a relationship. And I don't think it's fair to waste somebody's time if you're not really ready for a relationship. What message are you sending if you're out there dating for what? Okay, I know you might be looking for a short term relationship, got it, that's okay. Just be honest and use protection. You know, there are lots of reasons why somebody might not be ready for relationship.

Maybe they're emotionally recovering from a divorce or another kind of painful breakup, or they're going to therapy and working on their emotional intelligence. They want to wait till they have some better relationship skills. Maybe it's a stage of life thing. They might be consumed by raising small children and have no room for a romantic partner. I was

that for a lot of years. I was a single mother for twenty years, and I used to think to myself, if some dude wants me to spend money on childcare and time and money getting ready to go out with him, I'm just exhausted by the end of the day. It's like so much work. I felt that way, especially when you have you come home to little kids who are punishing you for going out. Maybe somebody's not ready for a relationship because they've decided they're going to work on

their physical health. They're gonna get in shape, they're gonna lose weight, they're gonna curb some addictions they might have. Or maybe somebody says simply getting their life together. They're focusing on their education, their finances, their career advancement. So you know, no matter what the reason, evolutionary psychologists might call this period of single life a time of increasing one's mate value. It's an important mating strategy. You're preparing

for re entering the making mating. I'll get it up mating marketplace. So I think sometimes having a stretch of self improvement is important. But I have one caveat. You got to ask yourself if you really are working on yourself or you're just avoiding. Are you avoiding dating. There's a really big difference because we don't learn anything and we don't grow by just avoiding relationships. Now, you may not be ready for a relationship, But does that mean

you shouldn't date at all? It depends, I mean, obviously, if you know you aren't ready to bring the absolute best of yourself to the dating table, it's probably not a good idea to torture yourself with. Well, maybe rejection by attractive mates or oh god, I felt this one enduring cringing interest from low value mates. Okay, here's what I mean, by the way. So I'll use the example of me, because I'm the person I know the most. So when I was young and pre kids, I was hot.

I was a flip in ten. I'm not gonna lie about it.

Has my mate value gone down? And indeed, sadly, the research does show that when humans have the burden of raising kids around them, that's a big burden to enter into relationship with our mate value goes down. But guess what I learned the kids get older, it goes right back up again, and peers are attracted to peers across the lifespan. So I was like, oh, right back out. Those gorgeous guys had just been through their divorce and

it all worked out. Find So I do want to say this, if you're not ready for a relationship, there could be some reasons to kind of date. You might want to dip your toe in to see where you're standing in the mating marketplace. Maybe you are busy losing weight, curbing your addictions, growing in your emotional intelligence, right, so you want to just see how you're doing. On the other hand, you don't want to waste somebody's time. You want to be an honest, ethical person, right. But dating

is the only way to practice relationship skills. You practice communication, exerting boundaries, expressing some emotional intimacy. So you can't do that if you're just alone. So there is some benefit to dating a bit even if you're not fully ready for a relationship. So the question is are you ready to really get it back out there? Are you ready to have a relationship. I have come up with four questions.

If the answer is no to each of these questions, then you have my permission to get right back out there. You've overcome your divorce, your self improvement, whatever. Number one, are you dating to make your ex jealous? You're not over that relationship? That then okay. So if you're not dating to make your ex jealous, then you can get on out there. Are you dating for attention to raise your self esteem? I'm going to just get out there. People are gonna pay for me, compliment me. I'm gonna

feel so pretty. No, you're not ready. Are you afraid to be authentic when it comes to expressing your emotions? If the answer is no and you're not afraid, then it's time to get out there. And finally, are you not able to set boundaries? If the answer is no, that means you can set boundaries. Great, head on out there. I do want to address one thing before we go, which is there is this talk that you can't love somebody else until you love yourself first, and so you

have to do that work on yourself. But I think people are really confused about what the definition of self love is. Self love doesn't necessarily mean having super high self esteem believing that you're perfect. Self love involves accepting your flaws and understanding your human being. It's about out treating your body and mind well, prioritizing your own mental and physical health when you're in a relationship or out

a relationship. Self love means giving yourself permission to have a voice in your relationships without fear that your partner will leave. Right. Look, we're always working on ourselves. That should never ever stop, whether we're single, whether we're in a relationship, and sometimes the sexiest thing is having the confidence to say, here's what I'm proud of, here are my tender spots, and here's what I'm working on. Because being real and authentic, I think is self love. So

get on out there. Someone else will love you too. You have been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I am here every Sunday from seven to nine pm. You can follow me on my social media. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I don't know if you know, but I took a year off social media. I'm back on again, posting like crazy. So and if you miss any part of the show, you can always find it after the show on the iHeartRadio app. But I'll see

you next week. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls 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.