This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k I AM six forty The Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. If you're new to my show. I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor, but I am obsessed with the science of love. I often think we do the weirdest and wackiest things as
human beings, all in the name of love. And I've always asked the question, why why do we do that? What can we do to keep our relationships happier and healthier? How can we love each other more? And hey, producer Kayla, how you doing.
I'm wonderful, Doctor Wendy.
Have you been following? It's not really a relationship thing, but kind of it is the Justin Baldoni Blake Lively legal troubles.
Honestly, I feel like you can't avoid it, disease.
I'll sue you, you sue me. Okay, here we go. So for those who don't know, here's what happened. There's this movie called It Ends with Us, and it is about domestic violence. And by the way, you know who the US is at the end, it's not the two of them. Shall I give it away the end of this this call of spoilers? Okay, So there's a movie called It Ends with Us where Blake Lively pays a
woman who she owns a flower shop. I think her name is last name is Bloom or something, and he's, of course a brain surgeon with a rack of abs and all hot, right, come on, right, So it's like a little Cinderella story and they meet, it's like hot and heavy and everything's great. But all the little signs start to show that he clearly has an anxious attachment disorder. I'm not diagnosing. I'm just saying I've read some things.
And he's trying to control her, and he's worried about her because you know, there's this X that shows up and he's all worried, right, an X from when she was like a teenager or something, but whatever, And so of course it turns into messic violins and she leaves. There's pregnancy, there's maybe there's this, there's that. So anyway, Blake Lively, who's very powerful in Hollywood and talented and is married to another megastar, Ryan. I always get the
Ryans mixed up. Ryan Gosling, Nope, No, Bryan Reynolds, Ryan Reynolds. Okay, so she's married to Ryan Roelds. So supposedly she's got three four kids. She was nursing one whatever, it's the whole thing postpartum on the set. There was some talk about him not turning his back when she was having some body makeup removed. There was some talk of him saying things like you, your wardrobe needs to be sexier. Anyway, she felt sexually harassed, and so she went to them
and basically said, hey, don't do this anymore. So they signed some kind of new clause. They made some kind of agreement, but as part of the agreement, he was not allowed to retaliate against her for having complained. Well, according to the gossip out there, he got his publicist to go and say kind of bad things about her. We don't know for sure the truth is going to
come out in trial. So anyway, she sues him, and then he turns around and counter sues Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for four hundred million dollars and then the tit for tat goes. They're back and forth in the media, arguing, arguing, arguing, saying things. And last week he created a website of the lawsuit. Some they're all about the lawsuit dot com or something and it just a simple thing. And he put out a long, one hundred and sixty page document
of which, okay, I'm not gonna lie. I scanned a lot of it, some went past, some I stopped because there was some interesting language to slow down for. And he's basically trying his case in all of our minds. Now, before I tell you the latest news on this, Kayla, have you seen the movie. I've seen clips of it. I didn't watch the whole thing through. It's hard to watch because it's bad movie. So I think you're gonna say this is my opinion. Okay, I'm not a movie critic,
but it's bad movie. Maybe it's bad because if you believe the two of them and what went on, there were too many chefs in the kitchen and too many people putting notes on and wasn't just one person's vision telling a story. And I don't know who had the better notes and who wanted the changes. I think that's what their fight really might have been about, just a power struggle about you know. Anyway, did you think they had chemistry?
I did.
They had a lot of sexy scenes, but it.
Could be because I think that he's so hot, so it's like, how could you not love him?
After all these scenes? I saw something different. How did you see anger and discomfort in her eyes? I saw her acting. You rolled your eyes when I said that.
Because stop it.
I did not see chemistry. I saw somebody who begrudgingly showed up for the scene and did her best work. But clearly she was acting. I don't know. I have to say. Nobody was going to see the movie It Ends with Us, But now that everybody's constantly talking about this trial, they're seeing it. Okay, So here's the news. This week. There was a court date finally, but neither what's his name, Justin Baldoni or Blake Lively showed up. They didn't have to, okay, both their attorneys showed up.
Attorneys for Blake Lively and the director co star of It Ends with Us, Justin Baldoni, whom she is accused of sexually harassing her. They met in federal court for the first time this week, and what was really interesting is that the judge is mad that they're talking about it so much in the media. Judge Lewis Lyman advised the attorneys of those two people to avoid making any
statements in public that could prejudice the proceedings. Basically, he said, if these two keep trying to litigate this case in the press, the judge is going to move up the trial. Now. I don't know why that it's bad news. Don't you want it to happen sooner? But March twenty sixth, a whole year, really, a whole year from now, is when we're going to find out about that thing. Can you believe it? I don't know. I don't know if I can wait that long. It's going to be another TRIALI century.
Do you think they'll let a cameratten think it's going to be a I hope so.
But if he's all mad about the public being involved, now, I don't know how much he wants them more involved, you know, I don't know.
We'll see, Okay, stay with us when we come back. I have a story of a romance scam, or you could call it catfishing, or you could call it mental illness on display of an American woman who flew halfway around the world to meet the man she fell in loved with, only to be told by his family it's not going to happen. It's kind of a sad story, but there are news for us in it of how
we can protect ourselves from romance scams and catfishes. And later in the show, if you're an online gamer, or you're parent of a child or adolescent who likes to game online, do not leave. I've got a parenting expert who's going to talk about how you can keep your kids safe online.
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
I want to talk about, particularly in my opinion, sad, sad story that's going on in the media about a woman who fell in love online, flew halfway around the world to meet the man she was in love with, only to be told by his family go home. Now. There are a few more details about this story, and before I get to it, I want everyone to understand the definitions of two different things that I talk about a lot. One is Catfish. Now, if you've never seen
is it still on MTV? The MTV show Catfish. It began with a documentary I don't know, feels like ten years ago, a documentary about a guy. His brother decided to document it. And they're kind of famous. They were famous then too, or no, no, got famous afterwards. I think they're both good looking, those guys, those brothers, and one of them had been conversing with a woman who he thought was a very famous or talented ballerina in the New York City Ballet and their relationship got very,
very very intimate. A lot of letters and gifts were sent, but there was always a reason why she couldn't meet in the real world. Now this is the beginning of catfishing, right. We know now that there are people sadly, lonely, people who have many different email accounts, many different cell phones, maintain all kinds of relationships with people online. And that documentary launched a series that has been going on for
probably a decade, a long time. You can look that up for me, Kayla, I don't know, a long time. And they so when the two brothers made the documentary, by going out to find this woman, they found a married, lonely, unhealthy, older woman with two adult sons with severe disabilities and
mental disabilities, and her life was caring for them. And the thing that was beautiful about the documentary is that it wasn't saying, ah, look at this crazy old lady, and oh, this is the young pretending to be a ballerina. This was an example of vulnerability. This is the documentary really looked at her situation and how hard her life was. So it launched the show and apparently there is never ending amount of stories about people who contact the show
and say, I've been in love with this person. We've been dating online for three years. Three years, they'll say, sometimes two years, one year, or four months whatever. They can't get together in the real world. Can you find them? And then they do some like high tech to tech slew thing they find the person. The person is never
the person they say they are. Either they're a different age, a different gender, a different body weight, they live in a totally different place, they have a totally different job, or whatever, but they are living out their fantasies by well, the word is catfishing, by duping people by lying about who they are, So that's catfishing. Romance scams a little bit different. Romance scam is people pretending knowingly to be someone else so they can trick someone online into giving
them money. Well, the next story I'm about to share with you is both a catfish and a romance scam, all wrapped up in won. Supposedly, she's back in the US now. She flew back this week. This is an American woman from New York who says she was jilted by a nineteen year old man she met online, and so she has made several pleas on social media for money. Now here's the story. This woman is thirty three years old. I'm not going to say her name because I do
not want to publicly shame her. More, she met a nineteen year old Pakistani man online and felt the two of them fell deeply in love. And you know what, when we are projecting our desires and our fantasies in a bunch of words and texts, we will read anything into anything. So she decided she was going to fly to Pakistan. She was going to meet him, she was
going to get married. She arrives and the family meets her and sees that, you know, she's fourteen years older than him, and maybe they sensed that her mental health was not so great. And so they said, I'm sorry, it's not going to happen. So the problem was, after this family and this young man rejected her, she had nowhere to go. She'd run out of money, her visa, her tourism visa was going to expire. In her mind,
she was there to be a bride, right. So then the Pakistani media started making a big deal about this. She got to hold press conferences and sadly, this is how we sometimes shame people with mental health problems. In several clips, she is adamantly expressing a desire to improve the municipal services in Pakistan, the infrastructure, the bus service, and well, you can listen to her and figure it out.
Reason why, I'm not saying that my plan is to reconstruct this whole country. Okay, I'm asking for one hundred k or more. I need twenty k by this week in my pockets in cash. Okay, that's a demand to the government. The government is gonna fix up these buildings, fix up the streets, and clean up these streets. It's ridiculous out here. I do not like it.
Yeah, she's asking for twenty thousand dollars cash in her pocket. There are a series of videos she's made on social media, and.
I think that she actually her and the eighteen nineteen year old were married online the Muslim Way before she even went out there, so she came out there for.
Her she thinks religiously she's married exactly. I wonder if they have to go get that annulled by the church.
I don't know, but I know a few other men there also. I offered her, he offered to marry her, but she was there.
Yeah.
I don't know if they wanted to exploit her, exploit her to come to America, but they're like, hey, if he doesn't want you, I'll take you.
So apparently another man who's cropped up out of nowhere, old teenager, not sure the age of this person, has said he's her son here in America he is, and that she suffers from bipolar disorder. I will tell you that she has received help from a non government organization, we don't know what charity, and they paid for her return ticket to the United States. What I hope is that this young woman can get the help that she deserves, the mental health help, and I hope this family can heal,
that this nineteen year old can learn. You know that whatever you see online is not always what happens in real life, right, all right? When we come back, you know how I like to weigh in on your love lives because that's the kind of girl I am. I'm a busybody. I have a lot of life wisdom, and I've written three books on relationships. I'm a psychology professor, So why wouldn't you ask me my opinion? So, okay, okay, when we come back, I'm going to go to my
social media send me a question on Instagram. The handle is at doctor WA Wendy Walsh. That's at d R Wendy Walsh.
When we come back, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty.
This is the time of the show where I get to weigh in on your love life because listen, I've had a lot of life experience. I've picked a lot of bad guys, and there isn't anything you could share with me that I haven't gone through before. Probably everything, I mean literally, I mean I'm not making light of how bad my choices were. My therapist would say that I was giving myself the gift of pain. For a
lot of years. I have survived emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence, financial abuse, and I have learned how common it is for many, many people in their relationships to suffer. So to let you know, I have experience, but I also have understanding, and I don't judge. If you send me a DM, do so through my Instagram. The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I will always protect you. I will always keep your name anonymous. Okay, So with that said, let me go to my dms
and see who's slid in there during the break. Dear doctor Wendy, my boyfriend and I have been together for six years. We have two children and we live together. He works in another state and when he comes back, we're always fighting. It's really hard to stay together. Words of advice, please, Okay, let me say this. The research shows that people who have regular conflict tend to have healthier relationships. But let's put a pin in that for a minute. They tend to be small border skirmishes that
are constant renegotiation of the boundaries. The way you're describing this, fighting all the time, always fighting, sounds like you're not happy. This is not uncomfortable. Your needs are not being met. You have two children together, so there's a reason for you to want to make this work and stay together because we want it. But you're also modeling a relationship for your kids, right, this is how they learn about
love by watching. So my biggest suggestion would be to find a couple's therapist that would teach both of you better conflict resolution skills. Now, if he's traveling a lot because of his work, you can always, you know, use someone online or by telephone. But just because you're fighting doesn't mean the relationship's over. I would question what are the issues that are causing the conflict? How are better
ways to deal with the issues? Right, So, I don't think it's over, and there's many good reasons to stay together. Believe it or not. There's researches so that staying together for the kids is actually better for kids than being raised by a single parent. Just because the way our culture doesn't support single parents. Single parents have a higher rate of mental health problems, physical health problems, financial problems. Kids are you know, thrown around back and forth between houses.
So you have every reason to want to make this work if you have two children, But I would definitely talk to a licensed therapist because you guys can learn how to have healthier fights or find out what the big issues are underneath it all. Dear doctor Wendy, should I expect a guy I'm not exclusive with but I have been dating for a month to get me something for Valentine's Day? If he doesn't is an indicative of how he feels about me? All right, So let's talk
about short term relationships versus long term relationships. I do not judge. You're welcome to have a short term relationship, and if this is a short term relationship for you or him, then nobody's obliged to do anything any big
romantic gesture on Valentine's Day. On the other hand, if you're dating hope being to be exclusive someday and hoping to have a relationship, and by the way, the way you say you're not exclusive, I'm wondering if you're having sex with him already, because I believe that you shouldn't have sex with somebody until you talk about at least sexual exclusivity, which is different from will you be my boyfriend? Will you be my girlfriend? Kim, we posted all over
social media for the world to know. No, how about Hey, I'm enjoying getting to know you. Looks like you're enjoying getting to know me. While we're figuring this out, Why i'd like to know that I'm the only person you're sleeping with. Say that before you have sex for the first time. Everybody, make sure you say that. So anyway, I'm going to make this giant leap and assume that you've been seeing him for a month and everybody's too
afraid to have that conversation about exclusivity. Now you want to know if a Valentine's Day gift is going to show up. And my answer to you is, like every other thing, at the very beginning of the relationship, it's an opportunity for you to analyze whether he has long term potential, to test him a little bit. And so the answer is he doesn't have to, but if he does, that's a good sign, that's a green flag. Then you
know what his intentions are, right that he's investing. You're looking for somebody to invest in the relationship, whether it's time, whether it's treasure, whether it's their workload, whatever, that's what you're looking for. So yeah, there's no rule out there that says he has to buy a Valentine's Day gift. But if he does, it says something, and then you know more about where stand. All right, dear doctor Wendy. I have a single group of girlfriends that have become
completely jaded over the idea of love. Oh, I remember those ones. Their horror stories scare me. I'm open to dating and finding love, but the more I talk to them, the more they ruin my view. Where can I find a community with a healthy outlook on love? Well, I'm glad you see that. I'm glad you see that your social world is biased. And if you start out dating with only horror stories and imagining the worst, you'll create it.
Because life is a self fulfilling prophecy. I want to tell you the bridal industry is one of the biggest industries in American and it keeps growing. So somebody's figuring it out, right, somebody is figuring out how to get how to negotiate a commitment. Right. So I would say, well, your question is, where can I find a community with
a healthy outlook on love? Well, if you practice any religion, you're going to find it in any religious groups, youth groups, etc. For sure, because most religions preach love and marriage right, but also just sort of spend a little less time with some of those jaded friends. Spend a little more time with the few new friends that you're going to meet along the way and test them out and see
what their attitude is. If they literally fall into just man blaming and dumping on guys all the time, then move along because you want to keep open and positive. And let me tell you this, there are so many great men out there. I mean, it took me a long time. I found the love of my life in my fifties. It took me a long time to learn how to do it right and how to choose right.
And I wouldn't blame a population of people. I would blame those women for not making good choices and not analyzing and not noticing the red flags and moving too fast. That's who I would blame. All right. I've got more for you when we come back. If you want to send me your DMS, send it on Instagram. The handle is at dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh.
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI Am six forty.
Welcome back to the doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I am answering your relationship questions. If you want to send me a direct message, please do on my Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. Okay, sliding into the DMS. Here I go. Dear doctor Wendy, I'm dating someone who is laid off twice in the past three years. Oh, she hasn't been able to find work since. Should I be concerned if we're considering long term potential or is
she just having some hard times? So here's the thing, how hard you really trying? Is she acting like a victim and you're going to like save her? Are you supposed to be her savior? I personally believe that people should not enter a relationship until they can stand on their own two feet supporting themselves. Even if you were the most generous person in the world, that's not a way to start a relationship where you're the caregiver in some ways. So just having hard times, you know what.
I've had some really hard times in my life, times where cash flow is very low, jobs were scarce, but I always had this resilience I always had this get up and go I wasn't afraid to get out there and keep trying and trying and trying. And it seems like that's the thing she's missing. So I would talk to her about that. Definitely talk to her about that. Okay, moving along, dear doctor Wendy. My friend is very well
taken care of by her partner. I assume you mean financially, and she makes me feel like my relationship is less than because my man expects me to pay half of all bills. Am I settling? Oh? We are having a conversation about gender roles today, all right, So let me say this. There's no one right way to break up your finances. Our relationship is an exchange of care. That care can take many forms, might be sexual care, emotional care,
domestic responsibility care, childcare, whatever. Financial care might be one of them. But nothing is free in life. And your friend that's seems so well taken care of, you can't see what where the strings attached are. You can't see what she's having to give back. Now, there are a lot of women, educated, successful career women who have patriarchy swimming around in their own heads. They suffer from their own Cinderella complex, and it sounds like that's what you're
dealing with. You're dealing with on the one hand, I want to be a successful, self made woman, but oh I'm tired. Wouldn't it be great to just have Prince Charming come in and take care of everything. Let me tell you nothing is free in life. And those women who've chosen traditional gender roles. First of all, there's no job security in that. There's no pension plan in that. Oh yeah, you think you're gonna get alimony and child support? You wait, if you checked the laws lately. It is
really important that everybody take care of themselves. Now. One thing I find interesting about your question is you said my man expects me to pay half of all the bills. So it sounds like this is something he's asking you to do, not something that you're offering. And I'm wondering why if you don't want to do it, are you feeling forced to do? You feel less than with him? Is he somehow a high value mate in some other way, whether he's good looking or popular or what have you.
I'm wondering why you're cowtowing to what he expects Instead of two people sitting down and going, hey, this would work better for me, and I should say this. I don't think bills should be split fifty to fifty. They should be split based on the earning needs of each partner. So if one partner makes fifty thousand dollars a year and another partner makes twenty five thousand dollars a year, one should pay twice as much in the bills. It's proportional, right,
that's what you need to do. I think you and he need to have a conversation and you need to rethink your Cinderella complex. Just saying, all right, moving right along, Dear doctor Wendy. My boyfriend treats me well good to know, is the kindest, most patient soul ever. He's really smart in the conventional sense, and I'm attracted to his mind. But he doesn't make the best business decisions. Well, this
cost me in the long run. All right. You guys might think I'm being cold, rational and cruel, but the facts are relationships are an exchange of care designed to
create mutual survival of both people. You're a woman. You haven't mentioned whether you have kids or you're gonna have kids, but there's gonna be a time in your life, where his financial resources may need to cover for the both of you while you're busy raising his jeens, giving birth to his kids, breastfeeding his kids, and those are lost years of income. If you're worried now that he's not making good business decisions, what are you going to do
when you get more needy financially. I'm not telling you what the answer is. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you that it's absolutely okay to think about your long term survival, whether it's emotional survival, whether it's financial survival, long term survival, because relationships are about joining two sets of talents and assets so that both people can survive in a better way. All right, I think we have time for one more. Hi, doctor Wendy. I've
been happily single for seven years. Love to hear that happily single. My friend was insistent about setting me up with a guy she just knew would be the perfect match for me. He was awful. She wrote that in caps, all caps, He was awful. Now I can't be friends what with her the same way? How can I fix my friendship? It's hard not to be offended by her setting up with a complete jerk. Okay, I just want to say something. Somebody else's trash might be somebody else's treasure. Okay.
So I don't think she said I am gonna hurt my friend by fixing her up with a guy who's awful. No, she probably just wanted you to have a mate. Then, yeah, she didn't have good taste, or she didn't have taste that matched your taste.
Right.
So I think that the fact that this has caused strife in your relationship is now on you. This wasn't her fault. She did a good deed. Don't shoot the messenger just because she tried to do a good deed. All right, You can just tell her you like being single, You're happily single. Don't fix me up again? Got it? Got it? Got it? Hey, when we come back, do you have a kid or a teenager who's spending a
lot of time gaming? Are you worried about online bullying or pre you know they can even steal your credit card information through those gaming things. I have a guest next who's going to solve it all for us. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We 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