@DrWendyWalsh is talking about when you know it's time to get married. (11/03) Hour 1

The days are getting shorter. You know what that means, Hi producer Kayla, how are you doing today, wonderful, Doctor Wendy carry are you feeling fall like I am family fall like I wore like fall colors today, sort of rust and green. Yes, ready for it? So you know what that means. In the world of relationships, the holidays are coming up and that is often the big pressure to propose right now. I should say that we know

that first time age. Let me get this straight. The age of first time marriage has continued to go up. Human beings are taking longer and longer too. I don't like the term failing to launch. I like the term giving the time necessary for the prefrontal cortex to fully developed.

Then you can make better decisions for yourself. Right. Look, compare this in nineteen fifty, the average twenty seven year old dude was married, had a mortgage, had two kids, and that meant his wife was twenty five ish and same thing by that age, right, people were getting married at eighteen nineteen twenty. You know, I've read this interesting statistic about education. Did you know in nineteen seventy only

four percent of Americans attended college. So it's not like you had that four or six years of education to eat up from age eighteen to twenty four, right. It was like an evolutionary psychologist would say that reproduction is far more urgent than education. Education is about eventually making money, securing resources from the environment to pay for kids. Right. So anyway, what does this mean for marriage? And now an age of marriage and holidays coming up and proposals.

So let me talk about if I think your relationship is ready for a proposal. Now you might be somebody who's and I'm going to put gender on it just for a second, because you know, I proposed to my husband, you know that, right. We did it live on KFI, so you can take out the gender piece. But there were a few things we had before I popped the question, and it was I knew what the answer was going to be, right, So never ask a question. It's like in a courtroom. Don't ask a question like that unless

you know what the answer is going to be. No surprises. I was actually cruising online the other day and they had a video of a proposal that went wrong. I think it was staged because it was like some one of those click trap videos whatever they're called clickbait things. Was it?

business trip. And she hides the boyfriend. She follows the trail of rose petals into the bathroom where there's a bubble bath and candles and everything, and he's humming along laying out rose petals with his earbuds in so he can't hear her come in. And he looks up and he's like, oh, hi, honey, you're home early. I didn't get fully set up. Yeah, I think it was a fake video. But anyway, don't be proposing if you're having affairs,

either of you. Just want to say that, all right, let's look at the science and the data and the statistics on whether your relationship is ready for a marriage proposal this holiday season. One. How old are you? Okay, I'm just just statistical probability. The highest divorce rate are

with marriages that start before the age of twenty four. Now, the prefrontal cortex, that's the part of your brain that is very important for planning, organization, thinking about consequences, that's not fully developed until at least twenty five or twenty six. So if you're making a major life decision prior to that, you have a good chance that you're making a wrong decision.

Like I often say, you shouldn't be allowed to do make any decision except like ordering from a menu until you're twenty five, all right, so your age please be at least over the age of twenty four, please please please. Also, let's talk about the length of your relationationships. So far, I don't think any two people should even consider spending the rest of their lives together. Put a pin in that.

I'll explain that that's not going to happen either in a minute, but spending a very long time, potentially decades together, maybe raising children together. You should not consider that unless you've gone through at least four seasons with this person, at least one calendar year. Please. When I hear about people rushing to the altar after they've only met three months ago, all I can think is, you are getting married in the flush of high from all those neuro hormones.

It's lust phase, baby, It's not love yet. You haven't even developed into love, so you need to go through all the birthdays, all the holidays, all the seasons. I mean, by the time I proposed to my Julio, we had been together four years, right, so we're pretty sure. And we also had a deal. We wanted to launch our youngest kid, so we were waiting for his kid to graduate high school. My kid graduated him from s to

Titian school, got a job or own place. You know, we needed our youngest to be a little bit on their feet, all right, So be together at least a year. So you're over twenty five, you've been together at least a year. Here's a crucial one. Your tribe approves, both your tribes approve. I used to host a show for Investigation Discovery called Happily Never After about brides and grooms that killed each other. Spoiler alert is mostly the grooms that did the killing, but almost one hundred percent of

the time they eloped because somebody's family didn't approve. So please pay attention to the other people in your life before you propose. And finally, do you have emotional intimacy? I know that people go through the motions of a love relationship. They think they're communicating, they have great sex, they look great together, they have the same likes and interests, But are they really vulnerable? Do they talk about their feelings? Can they be authentic? Because at the end of the day,

what keeps relationships together is intimacy. And if you don't have emotional intimacy, you have no business getting married now. I mentioned if this decision and you think this decision is about getting married and doing something for the rest of your life, you're wrong. When till Death Do Us Part was invented, death was pretty imminent, and because of our continuing expansion of our life expectancies, even the most monogamous of humans can expect two or even three long

stints of monogamy on their lifespan. Divorce does not mean a failed marriage. It's only a A relationship is only a failure if you haven'tlearned anything and aren't a different person into your next one. But if you do have children, I'm a big proponent that you should at least try to make that commitment for eighteen years, just saying that's what you need to do, all right. When we come back, there's this new trend. I was actually approached by Bride's

magazine to comment on it. A new trend where some brides are going on bachelorette trips solo alone. Let's talk about this trend when we come back. You were listening to The Doctor, Wendy Wall Show and KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio.

a certain age. I did not have a bachelorette party. He did not have a bachelor party. It's silly, seemingly, what is that supposed to be a last hurrah that you go out and pretend you're single on one night? What have you? However, a week before the wedding, a number of girlfriends of mine up in Oregon where we got married, actually held a little of very elegant, five course tasting menu dinner at one of the vineyards for me.

So that's how we do it. A little classy thing sip a bunch of wine, eat some delicious food, and we're all good and we're out of there. I also own airbnbs where I have been the host of numerous bachelorette parties. Some of them have been cut short. I actually had a group ask for a partial refrun because my fingers are making quotation marks now. The bride got sick after eating something at a vineyard. She drank too much. She barfed in my airbnb, and they wanted their money back.

I'm sorry, take her home all right, learned how to handle her thing. Now, What is the right thing to do for a bachelor or bachelorette party? Talk about the ladies, because that's all I'm caring about these days. Dudes, go out, go to your strip clubs with your guys. I don't know, enjoy, I don't know. I'm not going to be there. I

don't want to hear about it. When I was young, I used to hear you there'd always be one dude who actually had emotional intimacy with his girlfriend, and he would come home from the party and tell about the debauchery, and then the girls club would call each other and hear about it, and it was just drama that happened, So guys, just keep it to yourself out there, enjoy,

all right. I did go to one bachelorette party of a woman who got married in her fifties, and she did the whole Vegas show strip clubs, like literally a crown of plastic penises. It was so gross. It was so not like when you're just don't don't even try to do the young girl thing. Even if you're a young girl, don't wear a crown of penises. This is something weird about that, all right, But there's a new trend.

I was approached by Bride's magazine. They asked me would a solo trip be beneficial for a bride, And it made me think, because you know, my knee jerk reaction is going to be hell no, like get with your friends, that's the whole thing. But then I spent some time thinking about it and I realized that, you know, not everyone is wired the same way. So I'm an extrovert. Extroverts. It's not about the fact that we talk a lot, although some of us do. It's just that extroverts get

their energy by being around other people. So after we go out to some kind of party, we come home, make a cup of coffee and talk all night about everything that happen, and text everybody because we are just jazzed up. If an introvert goes to that party, they come home and get under the covers and they don't want to go out for a week. They're exhausted from it, right,

So introverts refuel through solitude. So let's say a bride is an introvert, and let's say she's planning the biggest day of her life that she knows is going to be absolutely exhausting for her. A wild bachelorette party might not be the thing for her. She might actually feel depleted and exhausted and worried about the wedding. Or so I thought about it. I thought, you know what, there are some lovely introvert brides out there who might benefit

from just taking a bachelor a trip all by themselves. However, there are a number of things that she's got to consider before she books that solo trip. First, she does have to think about the feelings of other people. Remember her tribe, her sisters, her mom, her friends. They want to celebrate her, and she has to think about their emotional needs. So maybe if this introverted bride understands that

these people around her do need to do something. She could suggest let's do a quiet luncheon or let's just do a spa You ever do a SPA day with a bunch of girls. You never see them except in the tea room in between the services, maybe in the hot time for a minute, so you can say, hey,

we could just do a SPA day together. Right, So, if you really are truly somebody who needs a dose of alone time that will help you feel like mentally fortified, just explain it to the people who matter and then suggest something quieter, and then also explain to them that your solo trip is designed to help you weather the madness of your wedding weekend. It's not designed to exclude them. There's no harm intended here, and if they truly love you,

they will understand. Now here's the next thing. A solo bride needs to consider how she should best honor herself. So if that trip is like super adventuroists or physically taxing, I'm going to go climb a mountain, I'm gonna you know, that might best be saved for a couple's trip. Have your dude with you or something. You don't want to

come back from your solo bachelorette trip absolutely exhausted. And another thing, you don't want to expose a bride to parties and nightclubs because you know what, they're filled with potential mate poachers. That's where you get cold. You have second thoughts. Right, so I would say Abiza probably off the list, right, Vegas off the list. Don't go to nightclubs, don't go to parties. And another thing you got to think about is safety. Women traveling alone, sadly, are often

targets for crime. So even if you're in a safe place, sometimes being alone in an unfamiliar place can make you have feelings of anxiety about personal safety. Right, So here's some ideas I have for a great women's solo trip, a women's only retreat. If you literally go and google the words like women's retreats near me, there are thousands of them. So you might be alone and there might

be stranger women around. You might go to yoga with them or talks with them, but you still have your own room and your own time, and you feel that you can find solitude. The other thing you can do is just rent your own luxury Airbnb where your super hosts live there too, so you got somebody there if you need to be, but you'll be maybe immersed in nature. You can also do your own spa weekend alone, you know, or you can take an educational trip, like go to

an international cooking school. That could be fun. I'm not saying because you're going to be a bride you need to learn how to cook. I'm sorry, I don't mean to throw that in there. I happen to enjoy cooking, it's my hobby. My Julio is not a great cook, so he likes a judicious so we're all good with the division of labor in the house. So obviously, bachelorette parties have big benefits, right Going out with a group of friends who love you is this wonderful feeling of community.

It's an opportunity for you to feel honored and spoiled. And if you are an extrovert, you will have a flip and ball. But if you're an introvert, this party can feel exhausting, and that's not a feeling a bride needs to have right before her big day. You have to worry now about planning the bachelorette trip, and you get stress about making sure everybody has a good time. Oh oh oh, and there's the social stress of managing

those what I call interpersonal conflict between the girlfriends. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's time to go rewatch the film Bridesmaids. If this movie scares you, you need to take a solo trip. That's all I'm saying. Take a solo trip. Okay, let's move from weddings and proposals and bachelorette trips and talk about how to have a healthy relationship when we come back. Two things that healthy couples never ever, ever do. I hope you don't

do these things. You're listening to the Dr Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

et cetera. But also practice in relationships, right, stuff that didn't work, Like, there are things that I did that I cringe at now and I worry. But now I'm happy to tell you I have, what I think is, I'm knocking on wood, a pretty healthy relationship. So I was reading through some of the recent literature on how to have a good, healthy relationship, because that's the other thing. You got to keep doing the work, keep reading the stuff.

And I noticed that research has shown that there are two things and if they are done in a relationship, they can seriously damage the relationship. And the first is using sarcasm. Do you know what sarcasm is, producer Kayla, Yeah, I know how to use it, of course you do. It's saying one thing. You know. When I was raising my kids, we call it the opposite game, Right, You're teaching sarcasm by saying you say one thing, but you mean the opposite. And that's what sarcasm is. Some people

would call it the lowest form of wit. The famous Gotmans John and Julie Gotman up at the University of Washington in the Marriage Lamb lab say that sarcasm is can be one of the most dangerous things to use in a relationship. Why because it's actually a negative dig at your partner and you're trying to make a joke. Now, I'm just gonna say this, there is a little bit of truth behind every joke. And when we talk about

black humor or dark humor, it is humor. Like all humor is tragedy viewed from across the street, and dark humor is humor where that's not even a wide street, it's a little path. Right, You're like, oh, that's not even funny. People that look at stand up comedians and get hurt by what they say are hurt because because they don't have enough distance from the material, Right, whatever's happened. So you're trying to be funny, You're trying to veil your criticism in a little bit of humor, So you

use sarcasm, and it never works. The person I either feel confused like what do they mean? Or the like. For instance, let's say your mate comes out looking fabulous to go out for the night, and you go, well, are you going to shower before we leave, or you look a hot mess, and they feel like, are they giving me a compliment? Am I the butt of a joke? Why don't you just say, hey, you look great? Right by the way, I used to get insulted when guys would say, oh, you got all dulled up. I was like, no,

just say I look good. Don't say I like tried to put some artificial things on me to look like a doll. He thought he was giving me a compliment. I'm like, no, just tell me I look pretty, not like hmm. I used to here's a bad one. A bad one. So back in the day before we had text, before we had iPhones and everything else, you would be waiting and waiting for a guide call. And then if he was taking too long, and my anxious attachment and

feelings of abandonment who blew into anger. I would see the phone number light up on the collar idea and I would pick up and go, oh, I see you learned how to dial a phone. Sounds like a compliment, right, they learned something new. But what was I really saying? You haven't called? Where are you? It might be something light like honey. Every day when I see the socks on the floor. I just am remind it's my favorite form of home decoration. Oh come on, or how about

oh sports on TV again? What a surprise? You guys need to stop that. You can just simply say, oh, are we in the World Series now? Are you going to need a lot of time to watch the Dodgers and the Yankees in the next few weeks? Is that what's happening? Just ask, but don't or just say hey, I'm wondering if we can have some alone time before or after the game. Say what your needs are. Don't

be afraid. Okay. The second thing that should never happen in a relationship, and I used to do when I was young all the time, is trying to make your partner feel jealous. I think women are particularly good at this, right. You know what I used to do, caitleb. I used to leave other guy's phone numbers on pieces of paper in my car if I knew my guy was gonna borrow my car or something. I love that I love it, so you just see the number down there.

It doesn't work, it backfires. So they interviewed various participants trying to figure out like why is it working backwards? And one guy told a story that he saw a guy approach his girlfriend in an airport and he got annoyed, like who does he think he is? And even though the girlfriend brushed off the guy, his mind started racing with questions like what if she does find him attractive? Might I actually lose her, maybe she would be happier

with him. You see, it doesn't provoke jealousy and more desire, It provokes questions about relationships to ability. This study, by the way, was done at Reichman University in Israel. And so I think we need to stop doing all kinds of manipulative When I see people write in their profiles, I don't want to play games and I don't like game players, it's usually because people have used manipulative tactics to try to bring someone closer instead of just plainal honesty,

instead of just saying your feelings. Why is it so scary, I'll tell you why. Because people are afraid if they say their truth that they will be abandoned, that their person will leave them. Right, That is the underlying fear of us just being honest. But wouldn't you rather the relationship ends because somebody can't tolerate the real you, Then you having to live artificially and pretend to be somebody or not your whole life. I don't know, maybe it's me,

but I am just open honest. From the beginning. Everybody said you wear your colors on your sleeve. You just say it I just say it. It's given me a job in radio. I just say it right and eventually, Okay, it took me a few decades. I found a man who told me from the beginning, I love big mouth women more than anything. I mean, you're gonna find your person. Don't be afraid to be real, be who you are. Okay, continuing on what helps make our relationship successful, get your

notepad out. I've got a few ideas. There are actually a number of things that healthy couples say to each other on the regular, and let's talk about those things when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendywall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

are on the iHeartRadio app. You can go listen to previous ones. They get put up like a podcast, so you can just find them Doctor Wendy on demand. I think they're called right, oh right. I've been doing a lot of don't do this, don't do that, don't do this, don't do that damaging. How about what you should do? Things you should do in relationships? These are phrases that

healthy couples say to each other all the time. And you know, one of the things I want to say about communication is that I think the best way to communicate something uncomfortable is to start by making a communication sandwich. It starts out with a compliment followed by a layer of something that's hard to chew on, and it's backed up with some other loving words. So they don't even

realize that their defenses aren't up. They're not going to get some quick reactive rebuttal you're going to actually be heard. Their ears will stay open because they're hearing the compliments too, right, So there's another way to do it too, Instead of talking with just a pure, lucy, puffy, light little compliment. You can start out by just setting them up for

that something difficult is going to come up now. Plenty of couples start out by saying things like we need to talk, or what time are you going to be home? There's something we need to talk about that strikes tearor in the heart of somebody who's in a partnership, they're like, oh no, what bad things come in now? But healthy couples say something like I want to share something with

you that might be a little hard to hear. Hear my tone, It wasn't we need to talk, It's I want to share something with you that might be hard to hear. So that's where you have that empathetic, sweet voice. What you're basically saying is I hear you that this is going to be hard, but I really need to express this right now. All right, here's another one. I

really need your support right now. Besides that, you might say I really need your help with this, or I really need you to just listen right now, or I really need your take on this. You know what people need instructions. Nobody goes into a relationship having a full operating manual of how to deal with another person. So before you share something, healthy couples more likely will give the listener an instruction about what they're supposed to do

with the information that's about to come. Right, So I might say to Julio all the time, honey, I know you're going to jump in and tell me how to solve this problem, but first, can I just have you listen to me all the way out while I'm trying to figure it out. I'll say that I just need your or I'll just say, honey, I really need your support. I need your help right now, right, don't be afraid. You know, in our culture, we like to think that needy is a bad thing, and you know who invented that?

Avoidant people emotionally avoidant people who are independent to a fault, so they feel like absolutely pressured and ameshed by people who are emotionally vulnerable, so they call them needy. But actually, in a healthy relationship, you should be able to express your needs. Okay, here's another thing that healthy couples might say to each other regularly. I can see how you feel that way, or I can really understand how that came across to you. You want the person to be hurt,

so you want to. When they come back with yeah, but but but you did this and you did that, say oh, I can understand how that must have felt. And then the person feels hurt instead of defensive. You have no right to feel that way because in a bib babah, just say hey, I get it, I know what that must feel like. I give them a little bit of empathy. They also don't be afraid to say things like and I do say this a lot because Julio's super smart and I'm always learning new things from him.

I will say, huh, I never thought of it that way. Right, they're heard you're learning something. Huh, I never thought of it that way. Just say that, right? Are you writing these down? You should be writing these down. You're gonna to say them to your spouse tonight. You know it's funny, is it? A few days ago, I was in a studio and I shoot these videos for Local Now. If you don't have the Local Now app, you can I do.

These relationship videos are three or four minutes long, and the entire crew are all male, many of them married or living with their girlfriends, are in relationships. Many of them in the hard part of marriage when they're small kids at home. And at the end this week, one of the guys said, we love having your doctor, Wendy because we always get a pep talk on what we're supposed to do in our relationships. Right, because, guys, you see, women are out there reading self help books. We are.

Every women's magazine out there, from Cosmo to Glamour, de Vogue always has psychological information or relationship columns. Right, We've been reading this stuff our whole lives. They don't put that in the car magazines or the sports magazines, do they, Kayla, No, they don't put relationship advice. So Men's Journal has a little something something every now and again. Yeah, and who is that gay man? I'm joking straight men read that too, okay,

And AskMen dot Com that's where they should be. It's kind of funny, but ask men dot Com a lot of the articles are written by women, but it's called askman dot Com. I think there's a lot of men giving advice to you there. All Right, here's the big thing. It's a big one. Guys. You need to say in your relationship A lot guys and gals. I'm sorry not I'm sorry you feel that way, or I'm sorry whatever, I'm sorry for the part I played in this. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry my intention was not

to hurt you. I feel so bad. Learn how to say these words. Literally, relationship will be so much happier. And the best one is the sentence that begins with how how can we fix this? How can we find a solution to this? How can we do? You notice what happened there? You just put yourself on the same team as somebody else. Your partner comes and complains about blah blah blah blah. You never do this, You never do that, and you get to say, how can we fix this? Right? How can we? We're now on a

team together. It's now a problem to be solved. It's not just you complaining and whatever. First you're going to say, I can understand how you feel that way, and then how can we fix this? Honestly, you want to have a healthy, happy relationship, that is the way to do it. Hey, when we come back, I'm going to my social media.

If you want to send me a question in a DM go to Instagram at dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh and I'll keep your identity anonymous, but I'm going to weigh in on your relationship life when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Waalh Show on kf I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on k f I A M six forty from seven to nine p m on Sunday and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app