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 Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. This is normally the time of the show where I go live on TikTok Instagram. Open the phone lines. But my nose is stuffy. The road hurts. I think I have a tissue coming out of my nose.
I got a cold. I'm all wrapped up musweaters here.
I'm not going live on anything right now, so let me instead head to social media if you'd like to send a question in Kayla's going to be checking Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh.
At Dr Wendy Walsh is the handle? All right?
Oh, it's actually a kind of Instagram question. Dear Doctor Wendy, my new boyfriend has only dated influencers. I'm his first normal girl. Is this a red flag? Am I really what he wants? You need to bring this up. I say this over and hord bring it up. Find out why is the only interest in show people narcissists?
Show offs? Am I describing myself?
I'm just saying no, just say, hey, I noticed you dated people like who are really beautiful show offs on the social media in the past. I'm a little different. Why'd you go this direction this time? Oh yeah, that's a big opening for him to be able to say things like because you are so real and authentic.
And I love you? All right? Moving along?
If you want to send a question, send it to Instagram at dm at doctor Wendy Walsh. Dear doctor Wendy, My girlfriend claims to love me, but her actions tell me she doesn't like me. It's hard to explain, but she ruins my special moments and puts me down every chance she gets.
I love her, but I told her just leave me.
If she doesn't like me as a person, she won't admit to not liking me. But is it possible for someone to want to stay in a relationship with someone you don't like? If so, why do people stay in the relationship?
You know what, I'm.
Gonna put that question to you, Why do you stay in this relationship?
I'll tell you why.
I know what has to do with your early childhood programming, and you should talk to a licensed therapist about this, because why are you giving her all that power to either be nice to you or leave you. If you don't like the way she treats you, you need to high tail it get out of there. You said, is it possible for someone to want to stay in a relationship with someone you don't like? Yeah, you're doing it,
just saying I want to be really clear here. All right, Hey, doctor Wendy, I dated a man three years ago and we decided we weren't compatible. This man won't leave my life, though, he checks in every few months and says we just needed time to grow. Can you grow in compatibility? He puts in so much effort, I'm starting to think he is my future husband.
Well, well then you should try it out.
For the most part, when two people have a little relationship and they decide they're not compatible, I don't know how long you dated, whether it's two dates or whether it was two years. Generally, when they get back into relationship later, I call it going retrosexual.
They the same dynamics come up again.
So unless both people admit they were wrong, both people decide they're going to go to therapy together. It's very difficult to create a new relationship system with somebody who've had a bad relationship system with in the past. So, but now you're saying he's trying so hard, you're starting to think like he's the one. I mean, is it just because he's trying hard?
I don't know.
I would try it out, see what happens. I'm not feeling quite confident, but you never know. Let me know, write me back, let me know how it goes. I say, green light on that one. Dear doctor Wendy. I'm dating a man in his twenties. He is great sex and a fun time.
Uh uh.
It feels like a fling for me. But I think he loves me and is planning to grow with me. I'm thirty seven and I don't see this growing. How do I let him down gently?
Oh?
My?
You know the older person. I don't care the gender.
The older person in a May December relationship, a spring and winter relationship.
In your case, it's like late spring, early fall.
Whatever. The metaphor is going too far. The person who always has the power is the older person. The older person may have more money, more experience, but more than anything, they have more wisdom. And so you must be a benevolent leader. You can't use this young man for sex for one more minute. If you think it's not going anywhere, then let him find somebody that he can have a secure, healthy bond with.
That's what I'm saying.
All right, I think I have time for one more Dear doctor, Wendy, my friend introduced me to this man who is in town for two weeks. We hit it off, and I had sex with him. It happens he.
Was gone the next morning. And whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa what. I'm reading this sentence and I can't believe it's true. Is this a fake thing? Okay?
He was gone the next morning and left me five thousand dollars in an envelope. I think he thought I was a hooker. I'm so offended. Should I give the money back? Hell no, I don't know what you said or did, or maybe the person who introduced you might have said, maybe she deserves a commission.
I don't know.
But he's not coming back. Okay, he's closed the door. Don't hope there's a real relationship. He misrid the signals.
But luckily he was a gentleman an he paid for those signal.
No you don't know I'm a thing. You gave him your time. I think I told you the story. One time I was having lunch some very very wealthy women. They weren't the most beautiful in the world, they weren't the most educated or intelligent, but they had some designer things from head to toe. And I said to them, and they'd gone through very rich one rich husband after another. And I said to them, do you ever feel bad
that a guy's paying for everything all the time? And they looked at me without missing a beat and said, no, he's paying for my time. And I thought, ooh, that's some self esteem. So guess what this dude paid for your time? Your time is apparently quite valuable. I wonder what you do for five thousand dollars.
Just wondering, just wondering. All right, let me come back. I've got more questions.
If you want to send me a DM send it to at doctor Wendy Walsh dot com.
On Instagram.
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six Sporty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI am six forty.
PFI AM six forty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm gonna keep going with social media because I don't feel well.
It's just a head cold, folks, that's all it is.
But I don't want to, you know, I usually go live on TikTok and Instagram.
I can't. I can't.
No, let's just keep it up with what we got going here, Kayla, get into those dms if you want to DM me a relationship question. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh, speaking of Handle, I was at a car coffee and cars Porsche thing with my husband last week, and when someone found out I worked for KFI, these guys like rushed me and they're like, you know Handle, you know Bill Handle?
Like yes, I do, Yes, I do. I'm very funny.
All right, let me read this one, Dear doctor Wendy. I have a friend who is a certified gold digger. Wow, they give out diplomas and that. I don't judge her for dating for money, but she makes me feel like I have low self esteem for dating for love. She says, I don't know how to ask for what I deserve, but I just don't believe in using people. It's starting to cause arguments between us because I feel judged by her. Is this a reason to end a friendship?
No, okay, let me just say this.
Friends should respect and honor each other, even when they're different. Now you're talking about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is that feeling you have when you really like your friend, you like to hang out with her, you have a lot in common, but there's this one thing that goes against your values, and it's hard to hold those two.
Thoughts in your head at once. She's a great girl.
Ooh, she's a bad girl, right, And so we have to do that with all of our friends. Surprise, surprise, because if we didn't disagree with some of the values. Now hopefully they're not major ones like your friends not out there, I don't know, murdering.
People or whatever. How don't know. I howe. She's an example.
It's like the extreme one that I know everybody has in their head. But we're always going to find something about our friends that make us pause and go, oh, I would never do that.
I would never say that.
I'm not like that.
And that's part of how we identify ourselves, by how we're different from others, so he but what bothers you? What this question says is that you're getting in arguments because you feel judged by her. So I think what you need to do is say something like this the next time the topic comes up, because she might be trying to make you think like her to make herself feel better about the way she is.
I want you to say this to her.
Hey, I was listening to doctor Wendy Walsh, and she says that all women have a little bit of gold digger in them. So I want you to know that if you are dating men for money, that is your prerogative, your choice. I still love you, but you don't get to criticize my choices because we're different and we can be different, and we can still hang out and we can still like each other.
Right, So, I don't think I have low self esteem.
I just have a different set of morals and they're not better or worse than yours. I respect you. Go for it, right, say something like that. See what happens all right?
To another one?
Oh, here's a good one. Dear doctor Wendy. How important is it to have the same beliefs as your partner? For longevity? And I assume you mean religious beliefs. I honestly, money beliefs and sex beliefs and all that stuff you know you can work through. But religious beliefs, I think is what you're asking about. So here's what I want to say. Pretty much, all the Abrahamic religions preach the
same thing. They celebrate in a slightly different way. They might use different food or different prayers, or different languages or different songs, different holidays of the year, but the commandments are pretty much the same to be a good person, right, And so I personally do not believe that a couple needs to hold the exact same religious beliefs. I think
children benefit from diversity. If you were in a relationship and you raised your children, say Jewish and Christian or Muslim and Jewish, that'd be great marriage, right, learn it all.
And I think.
That's good the other But what happens I've noticed people will say, well, I want to marry someone who's in my religion because it's weird that they don't believe the same things I do. And I actually had this conversation with a girlfriend once because she was engaged to meet this marry this guy.
She was Christian.
She because he's not Christian, and I think it's going to be a problem. And I said, do you need him to agree with you to help you reinforce your own beliefs?
She's like what?
And I'm like, if you really have faith, if you really believe, you don't need anyone to endorse that, right, Because, as I said, it's not like he's saying, hey, I need you to break more commandments that's happening, right, He's probably just saying, hey, I don't want to go to church, or I don't really believe the Bible. Literally, It's like, you know, I think it's a little bit magic, but it works for you, right, And that's where we need
to just respect each other. I respect all of my friends who practice a faith, a religion, I really do. All right, move on, Linge, I think I have time for one more before the break. Dear doctor Wendy. I've been seeing this guy for two weeks. Every time he wants to meet up, he calls it a thing. Let's do a drink thing, let's do a coffee thing, but he never says the word date. He does pay for me, but does.
The word thing imply that he's keeping me at a distance. I love this.
Yes, language has power and language has meaning. Obviously he's afraid of the word date. Maybe the word date is not in fashion in his age group or something. I think he's just trying to be cool. Let's do a drink thing, Let's do a coffee thing. And I think the next time he invites you out to maybe a dinner thing, why don't you just say can? He's pause for one sec? What does a thing mean to you?
I'm just really curious and you can do it lightly, you can do it in a fun way, but just you know, the when things when things about people confuse us, bother us we're curious about Instead of imagining what they mean, we should just you know, talk about it, just bring it up, comment on it, and it can be light and it can be fun. It doesn't have to be judge, can be respectful.
Uh.
Okay, moving on, Dear doctor Wendy, My girlfriend acts differently towards me when her friends are around.
She's a little mean to me.
Oh why does her personality change depending on who she's around? Tell you why your girlfriend acts differently when her friends are around, and why she's mean to you because her friends don't like you, and I don't know what she's telling them, but you're gonna have to bring it up.
You're gonna have to comment on it. That's what I say. Okay, whomen come back.
Have you decided it's time you're over fifty and you want to get on a dating app, then you better listen up.
You're listening to the.
Doctor Wendywell Show on KFI 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 Wendywell Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
As you can tell, my voice is held up, it's doing pretty good. Well head cold.
It's just my nose is a little stuffy, That's all I say. Kayla is still wearing her mask. So very good, very good girl, Very good for you.
All right, I have promised.
I promised and promised and promised that I want to talk about dating over the age of fifty, the new rules for people. I remind you that for the last ten years or more, the fastest growing demographic on dating apps are people over the age of fifty. I'm also going to remind you that when Till Death Do Us
Part was an invented, death was pretty imminent. And if you believe in the mythology that you're going to meet your soulmate in your twenties and stay together until death, do you pardon that's going to be thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years, then that's a myth and you need to be reschooled now. I should also say there's some of you listening who have done that, and you naturally
have a secure attachment style. You and your spouse may have stayed together until one of you died, or maybe you're both still alive, and you know what I have to say to you, Happy anniversary and congratulations. That's amazing. But statistically speaking, you're the minority for the rest of us.
You know, Mother Nature never anticipated modern medicine and vaccines and less war and famines, and so as a result, we suddenly have these very long life expectancies, and we are essentially outliving our relationships because because we continue.
To change and grow.
One promise that you make today, even though you in your heart want to make that promises forever and ever and ever, and you believe it forever and ever and ever. What you can't anticipate are changing environmental conditions. First of all, I believe there's no such thing as unconditional love, right, So I mean, if you're the person you love more than anything becomes an axe murderer, you're going to divorce them, right. There are all kinds of conditions, right, that's the first thing.
But secondly, things can change. Health can change, finances can change, kids can get involved, your goals and dreams, those are the big ones actually can change. And all of a sudden it's a different world that you're in and now you're making this commitment. Right, So I don't believe there's a such thing as a failed marriage. Just there's relationships where you've learned some important lessons. That's it. Okay, So I said that dating people are the age of fifty
fastest growing group on dating apps. But there's a big challenge. While there may not be new rules, there are big challenges. The biggest challenge is finding a mate whose tribe will be compatible with yours. You see, when you're young and you're dating, you just meet somebody. You form this lovely romantic bond and you make everything else in your life wrap around that relationship because you don't have that many ties, right,
you're sort of separating from your family of origin. If you're a young adult, you may be moving around jobs and have some flexibility.
You may not be tied into.
A mortgage and stuck in one near one piece of real estate. So you merge your lives. You maybe have children, you create your own beautiful little tribe. But dating over the age of fifty means, oh, there are a lot of people in this relationship. There might be aging parents to care for previous spouses who are still financially connected, or even emotionally connected, children from previous marriages, adult children, grandchildren.
So when we reach the age of fifty, there are so many people that we share our emotional pie with, and finding a way to manage all those competing interests can be the biggest challenge.
You know, when you're young, you can say our relationship.
Comes first, but later you're kind of like, well, you know, my kids still come first, okay, and then you're there next, all right, So I will say this that you should know this if you're over the edge of fifty, if you're hoping that you're going to meet someone at the supermarket or a nightclub. You're probably not at nightclubs anyway. You rarely meet people in the real world. Nowadays, those
days are gone. Dating apps are the only way to meet people, and so my best advice is that when you get on those dating apps, the first thing you want to do is to protect yourself from romance skin. Right, there are professionals. They often live in other countries. They make their living by pretending to be somebody they're not on a dating app, and they scam by charming a lonely person who's over the age of fifty. They create
a false sense of trust. Then they'll tell you, oh, suddenly they've had this major life crisis and you know, maybe you could write a check and get them out of their problems. Don't go down that road. Don't fantasize that this profile or this person is real. See them in the real world. And if they won't see you in the real world. And don't even trust video, by the way, because you can do these deep fakes with the video. If they won't get together in the real world.
There's a reason, and relationships are supposed to take place in the real world. So as far as what apps to go on, you can go on any app because you can search by age. I will say that I preferred when I was finding Ma Majulio, I preferred to go on the apps that attracted younger people. Not because I was looking for younger people, but because I wanted to date an older guy who was still hip. I knew about those apps. But there are plenty of people
in the Silver set. They can find a great community. You know, there's a thing called Silver Sneakers. I just learned about this recently. It's a health insurance thing.
Did you know that?
See the young people listening don't even know what that is. So when you turn sixty five, the government wants to save money on all your health problems and they want to keep you moving, so they have this thing called Silver Sneakers that the health insurance has to offer you, and it gives you like free gym memberships. I think that's funny. Anyway, I'm not there, but I know people
that are there anyway. So if you like to be in the Silver set with your Silver sneakers, you can find people on dating apps like our Time dot com, eHarmony dot com, Date Myage dot com. They're all out there, and my biggest advice is text a few times, then get on the phone. And if they won't get on the phone, you got to ask yourself why and get rid of them, and then meete for a short little coffee date in the real world, just short one so
it's not too much pressure. And then if you know they've passed the phone test, they've passed the coffee date, then you might have an actual first date with them, and it we get on out there.
Don't be lonely. Relationships are what it's all about. When we come back.
Did you have a childhood where your parents didn't compliment you didn't tell you you were great and wonderful and fabulous and fantastic. They were worried that you would get too big in your breeches, that you would think too much of yourself. Well, there's some personality traits in adults that you might know, people like this who were rarely complimented as children. I'm going to talk about them when we come back, but also what you can do to
heal yourself. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Well 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 and KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. I say it over and over that I want people to understand that they manufacture a lot of cars now that don't even have AM radio. So you need to download the iHeartRadio app and then you use the Bluetooth in your car and you can listen all the time to KFI. Also, if you missed any part of my show ever, they're
all there right there on the app. You can listen every week or re listen, or if there's a segment you liked, send it to a friend.
Right, all right.
I had a childhood, didn't we all where I had a mother who I jokingly say loved me too much. She was a little bit too much my fan. Good and bad things about this. The bad thing is that I felt I had to entertain her, right, But the good thing about it is that it gave me tons of self esteem and self confidence. I have had a career as a talker for forty years, television radio, teaching, I misspeak all the time, and I have a backbone
of resilience. I can deal with your angry emails, although I have to tell you so you know, the happiness in life goes on a curve, a U shaped curve. So picture your life span has shaped like the letter you, and happiness is at the.
Top of both of those.
Use so early in life, children if they've had a good, happy childhood like I did, have the most happiness. And then midlife it gets really messy, right you got kids, mortgages, divorces, job losses, health problem.
It's a mess.
And then if you get through that and you're on your way up, happiness starts to build again. And I noticed that I'm in like a total happy face.
Okay, I just got married and it's really wonderful. Okay, that's part of it.
I'm getting I have more freedom to do what i want to do with my days.
I'm just really happy.
So when you guys are not you, but you know someone who might be listening who's not you, uh sends me an angry email about something, I'll read the first two lines and if it starts to digress into anger and craziness, I just delete it. Because I feel like, you know what, I've done my duty of being the vessel for them to shoot all their unhappy feelings into and they probably felt so much better after they hit
the send button. And that's where the work was. It's not for me to read it all and answer it and respond. It's for them to get it out. So as soon as I see it's going there, I'm like, oh, don't challenge my happiness today, because my happiness is pretty great, all right. There are some people, though, who have had childhoods with parents who rarely compliment them. Now, I want to remind you, children's brains act like tiny emotional sponges.
They soak up messages from their parents. At the same time, these little brains are growing a sense of self worth and self identity. You know, the very act of growing from a completely dependent infant to independent adult is filled with pain and maybe even shame.
In fact, if somebody says to me.
Oh, I had such a happy childhood, I had such a leave it to be over childhood, I'm like my red flight my radar goes up. I'm like, oh, really, what are we repressing? Because you know what your parents did the best they could with the tools that they had.
Now.
Children feel shame when they make mistakes, but most of the mistakes that children can make that they make can be chalked up to life I haven't learned that yet, or oh, I just learned something from this failed experiment. And so they learn by faltering over and over and over, and if they're not careful, they will have lots of feelings of shame and inadequacy, and it can be overwhelming. However, good parents are able to say, good try, you've got this.
You're so brave. Oh, you've made so much great progress. Remember the other things you do so well, You're almost there. Wow, you did it.
I'm so proud of you. See that's what your parents should have been saying if it didn't happen. Though, Instead people can grow up to be adults. A few things can happen. One is they might become self loathing and not being able to not having been told that they're good and perfect sometimes can cause a permanent sense of feeling less than.
Or they may become pessimistic.
Right since only their losses are pointed out, they only look at the negative in life. Right now, I should say that true pessimism is partly genetic, but all genes have to be activated by the environment. So if you believe that there's only doom ahead, that's a hallmark of pessimism. They may turn out to be lazy. Now, let me qualify that people who with highly critical parents just become risk adverse, and this aversion to taking risks might look
like laziness. So they're just too afraid to apply for new jobs or promotions, or take exciting adventures or approach high value mates. So they say in bad relationships, low paying jobs, boring routines because they're afraid to take risks.
They believe I won't win, so why bother trying?
Sadly, the biggest one is they might become a bad picker of mates. Deep town people who are not adored by their parents as children can't conceive that an adult romantic partner can adore them. Remember I say this all the time. Love isn't about finding happiness. Love is about
finding the familiar. They may choose someone who treated them like their parents did, and then they go on an endless quest to please their parents, I mean, their lover or their bosses or whatever, and they become people pleasers because they're trying to get the love they didn't have as children.
All right, how are you going to fix this?
First of all, the brain is malleable, It has neuroplasticity, It can change across the life span. I say this all the time, and I'll say it again. Seeing a licensed therapist who practices cognitive behavioral therapy can help people challenge their faulty beliefs, the faulty belief that they are not worthy. For people who are prone to people pleasing, that therapists can help them learn to say no in a non defensive way, and that's how they start to
learn how to have healthy boundaries. And finally, we all have to learn how to cultivate safe relationships. If your friends allow you to be real, if they're not overly critical, if they show you true love, these relationships can be healing. But I will say the first step to welcoming those kinds of friendships into your life is to make room by ending relationships they continue to injure you. Don't injure yourself, Okay, And I'll tell you I learned all of this experientially.
I used to be the ultimate people pleaser, and now I love to.
Say no, no, no, I can't, No, I won't. Then it's okay, the world will go on, We'll all be fine. And that brings the Doctor Wendy Wall Show to a close. It is always my pleasure to be here with you every Sunday from seven to nine pm. As I said, if you missed any part of the show, it's right there.
On the iHeartRadio app.
You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k five 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.