June 17, 2024 • 31 mins
Dr Wendy is breaking down Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. PLUS are you being manipulated in your relationship? We have the signs to lookout for. There are new rules for dating over 60! And do you have relationship OCD? Dr. Wendy is breaking it all down on KFIAM-640!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show on demand on theiHeartRadio app. For the next two hours,
we're going to talk about everybody else'srelationship for a change, instead of
your own. Oh I don't know, maybe you might hear pieces of your
own life in some of this stuff. I'm going to talk about things like
(00:21):
did you know some of Brad Pitt'skids are dropping his name? I have
another question. New diagnosis is nota real one, but the media likes
to make up diagnoses. Do youhave relationship OCD? I'll explain Also,
if you're dating for the first timeafter the age of sixty, there are
some new rules that you need tohear. If you're known of my show,
(00:44):
I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. I havea PhD in clinical psychology. I'm
a psychology professor, not a therapist, but I am obsessed with the science
of love and I read the researchevery day. So let's get to it.
I was talking to a friend yesterdayand he is going through a divorce,
and you would think, by theway he described it to me that
(01:07):
this was just two happy campers decidingthat Okay, it's time. I do
want to remind everybody that, becauseof our very long life expectancies, even
the most monogamous of humans may seetwo or even three stint of monogamy in
their life, with some mate selectionin between. Now, every time I
(01:29):
say that, somebody sends me anemail or a direct message that says,
I don't know why you keep sayingthat my wife and I have been together
thirty four years and she's the onlyone for me. And I always say,
yay, congratulations, you're the minority, or you have a secure attachment
(01:51):
style and relationships are easy for you, and isn't that wonderful? That's great.
But the vast majority of humans maysee two, three long stints in
monogamy, or you know, theymight not even be in the monogamy box.
They might have all kinds of differentways. We have the widest range
of sexual behavior of any primate species. But you know that you've been listening
to me. So when is themost common time that people go through divorce?
(02:15):
Empty nest? You know, whenyou hear that fifty percent divorce statistic
that doesn't apply to every marriage,only applies to marriages over twenty years.
Huh, Because at that point thebusiness of raising kids is done. The
two people look at each other andgo, who are you like? Our
job's done and I want to nowremember who I was or get my mojo
(02:38):
back, et cetera. So anyway, talking to this friend and he says,
you know, it's great, We'regoing to conscious uncoupling counseling and it's
all going to be fine. AndI'm thinking it's all well and good until
he sees how long this divorce isgoing to drag out, or until one
or the other gets a new mate. It's like the divorce happens emotionally once
(03:01):
somebody gets a new mate. Youknow, it happens on paper earlier.
Now. The Brad Pitt Angelina Joleedivorce is a great example of an extended
divorce. It has been going onfor eight years. Eight years. It
is near the end now, andin case you don't know the timeline,
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it's very simple. Back in twothousand and three, Brad Pitt met Angelina
Jolee on the set of Mister andMissus Smith. Yes, that hot energy
in that movie was real. Hewas married to Jennifer Aniston. She had
just filed from divorce, filed fordivorce from Billy Bob Thornton. Okay,
so they get married, they staytogether, and there's kids adopted and kids
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babies or whatever, and they don'tend up getting married in twenty fourteen,
so like nine years, no,eleven years after they met. But then
in twenty sixteen, just two yearsafter the actual marriage. You might remember
in the news an alleged altercation tookplace on an airplane with Brad Pitt,
Julie, the kids, whatever.We don't know the details. There's lots
(04:04):
of conflicting stories. But immediately afterAngelina filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences,
we don't do plaining travel well together, she was given complete physical custody of
the six kids. I'm going togo through the timeline of all those kids
too. The family had to undergosomething called say harbor therapy, where a
(04:29):
doctor approved therapeutic visitation from brad Pitthad to take place. They also did
weekly counseling sessions. Also, bradPitt promised to maintain regular drug and alcohol
testing. This is serious when courtdoes that. Also, brad Pitt got
to keep each child's cell phone number. Happy Father's Day, Brad Pitt,
you got their cell phone numbers sothat he keep in contact whenever needed,
(04:51):
because the judge said, you needto have a strong, healthy relationship with
two parents. So back in twentynineteen, a judge did rule that the
Hollywood stars are now legally single,but now a five year battle over custody
of the kids over this winery inFrance that apparently they owned fifty to fifty
(05:13):
and she sold her shares without hispermission and that wasn't in the contract.
And anyway, recently he got hissixty percent controlling interest back and that means
that we are near the end ofthe eight year divorce. I'm just warning
people, divorce can be take along time. And I often say people
stay connected sometimes through divorce. Theyuse the courts and attorneys to just stay
(05:38):
connected. Now not connected through love, but connected through anger. But it
can be attachment anxiety. So ifyou're wondering about those kids. So Angelina
adopted to herself, Maddox who's twentytwo, Sahara who's nineteen. Maddox came
from Cambodia, Sahara from Ethiopia.Brad came on the scene. He adopted
them. Then they had a achild themselves, Shiloh who's eighteen packs.
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Then they adopted from Vietnam. Thenthey had twins in two thousand and eight
who are both fifteen. Now thatare both of there, so three bio
three adopted. So get this.Last year, Zahara reportedly introduced herself as
Zahara Jo Lee at her college sororityinitiation ceremony, so she was socially dumping
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her dad's name. Then this year, Shiloh filed a petition in a Los
Angeles court for a name change thatwould allow her to drop the pit name.
Their youngest child, Vivian, boldlyremoved Pitt from her name on the
credit of a playbill for a Broadwaymusical she was in, so again publicly
not using it. I guess she'sonly how old is she fifteen? She's
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got away till she's eighteen. Painfulstuff for Brad, especially on Father's Day.
It is heartbreaking when kids do that. And I don't know whether it
came from the mother, whether itcame you know, there's a lot of
identity formation that happens in that age. So speaking of divorce, maybe you're
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considering divorce maybe because you're in arelationship with somebody who's manipulative, controlling.
When we come back, let's talkabout signs that you're in a relationship where
you are being manipulated and what thatmeans. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Waalsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(07:35):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty.
You know, relationships are often aboutpower, and we would like to think
that all our intimate relationships, inall of them that we have like this
fifty to fifty balance. The truthis, in a good, healthy relationship,
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each person should give about one hundredand ten, meaning there's a good
twenty percent of abundance left over toshare. But I also have often said
that a relationship is an exchange.Sorry, it's an exchange. I love
it when people say to me,I found my soulmat Cupid shot his bow
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and arrow, and I just feelso in love. That's the neural hormones
that happen in early attraction. Butthe work of long term relationships has to
do with a cost benefit analysis.What do I gotta give. What are
they gonna do for me? Oh? I know that sounds cold. I
know it sounds cold, but onsome quiet little level inside your you're having
(08:43):
those thoughts. Now, a relationshipis an exchange, and that exchange is
always a form of care. Iwill care for you. I will care
for you physically. You will carefor me sexually. I will care for
you your household, will care forthe financial bank accounts. I'll care for
the kids. You care for oursocial relationship and being out, whatever it
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may be. There's so many waysthat people exchange care, and mostly it
feels like their needs are being metfor most people. Now, when there
is a power imbalance, it meansthat one person wants more than the other.
And how do they extract that unfairbalance of care in a relationship?
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They manipulate you, emotional manipulation.It is very common in relationships. Sadly,
the person being manipulated is usually somebodywho's very empathetic, who's sweet,
whose kind, who believes in loveand believes if love will conquer all and
if they just give, everything isgoing to be okay. And then people
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who want to extract more care fromthem find it easy to manipulate them.
Because somebody who manipulates knows your weaknesses, they know how to use it against
you, and this is how theyend up controlling the relationship. Eventually,
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these relationships end in divorce. Somebodyjust gets tired of being manipulated. Right
now, here's the interesting thing aboutwhen you have an emotional power imbalance.
It starts slowly, really subtly.They test you out, trying little things,
and you're so sweet and kind,you go, h, it's as
small. I'm not going to bringit up. It seems like a big
(10:37):
deal. Why should even bring thisthing up? So it starts subtly,
and then over time it becomes ingrainedin your relationship. This is the way
it is. So let's talk aboutsome of the manipulated behavior that's out there.
First of all, you hear meand the whole internet talk a lot
about gaslighting. Gaslighting, of course, is named after I think in nineteen
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forty I don't know seven to eightmovie about a husband who tried to make
his wife think she was going madby flickering the gas lights at different times
and saying I don't see anything.I know it's tuck you about right.
So gaslighting phrases in modern times includethings like you're totally crazy, you're being
too sensitive. I think you're overreacting. By the way, just want you
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to know, there's no such thingas an overreaction. There's just a reaction.
It happens to be your reaction andyour way of reacting. It's not
an overreaction. Okay, there's nosuch thing as being too sensitive. It's
just that you have a tender spot. You're aware of your feelings, and
you're expressing your feelings. But ifsomebody wants to gaslight you, that make
you think, ah, maybe Ishouldn't be feeling that. Maybe I shouldn't
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be feeling that so strongly. Right, So, if your partner's telling you
you're crazy, you're overreacting, oryou're too sensitive, that is a form
of gaslighting. Then my favorite kindof manipulation the old, good old passive
aggressive behavior. So the most commonway to be passive aggressive, of course,
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is through avoidance. Now you shouldknow, I came through many,
many decades of having kind of ananxious, ambivalent attachment style, and I
was mostly unconsciously, out of myawareness attracted to people who were avoidant,
and I was constantly upset and angryby their avoidance. But I was determined
to like make them love me,right, I couldn't stop. So they
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might just avoid the discussion of certaintopics. Another thing they do is they
lie and they blame you. Right. They make you doubt yourself by lying
and saying it it's not that way. They also might try to control you
by isolating you, telling you theydon't like your friends or they don't like
(12:56):
your family. Remember, if youare feeling emotionally drained or God forbid,
anxious or fearful in your most intimaterelationship, you need to do something about
it. Okay, you need tobring it up, And you could just
say something like, you know whatwhen you avoid me when I bring up
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something that's personal and emotional to me, it makes me feel sad and discouraged.
I actually want to connect with you. Is this something you're open to
talking about. If they're still dismissiveor they're still manipulating this is your problem,
then it's time for you to setboundaries. So you might say something
like, Okay, if you continueto interrupt me, call me names,
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avoid me, whatever, tell mewhat I'm feeling. Whatever it is you
fill in the blank. I'll stophaving this conversation and I'm going to go
out because I need to take careof myself right and finally reach out to
a licensed therapist. You need amental health professional who can help you make
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sense of this relationship. It's usuallynot you, it's them, and you
may be just being manipulated, allright, when we come back. I
was talking to somebody recently who's scaredto enter the dating world because she's sixty
five, and I said to her, did you know that peers are attracted
(14:24):
to peers across a lifespan, exceptfor a small minority of men who like
to date younger and a small minorityof women who like to be cougar's.
The truth is the media doesn't findit sexy, but people in their sixties
are mostly dating each other. Butthere are some new rules because it's a
different stage of life. Let's talkabout it when we come back. You
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are listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from KFI AM six forty. Ioften say that the person and we're in
a relationship with enlivens a piece ofour personality. We are a different person.
(15:05):
You know. You've heard people say, oh, she makes me a
better man or he makes me abetter woman. They don't. It's just
that they appeal to a part ofyou that exists and it gets to be
enlivened when you're in their company.For instance, with my fiancee Julio,
I'm like a crumpy person. I'mnot really crumpy, am I. I'm
(15:26):
like, I don't know. Iam a little bit of a pessimist sometimes
and I live life in my homelife as sort of even keel facts.
Yeah that's what I am. I'mjust the facts anyway. He is light.
He laughs a lot, and Ilaugh a lot when I'm with him,
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and I am a different person.I'm a lighter funny. He says
that I'm funny, which is hystericalto me. And so this is what
we do for each other. Now. We met in our fifties and not
so long ago. If you weresixty years old and you were out on
the dating scene, you will bealone. There'd be nobody there. I
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remember, like, so, mymom died of breast cancer and she was
like sixty and my dad was likefifty nine whatever, And I said,
oh, Dad, So after weburied her in everything a little grieving time,
I said, so do you thinkyou'll ever marry again? And he
said no, Like why would I? And where would I find some?
No? No, Sadly he wasdead in less than a year of lung
(16:37):
cancer. It was a crazy timeof my life. Lung cancer, breast
cancer, all in one year.Anyway, I digress Nowadays, since for
the last fifteen years, the fastestgrowing group of people to online dating and
dating apps are people in their fiftiesand even sixties. Now there's a dating
scene for every age group. ButI mentioned that relationships are in exchange of
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care, and our needs for differentkinds of care change across a lifespan.
Obviously, when you're young, it'sabout finding somebody maybe who's going to be
financially responsible so you can build alife with and have a mortgage with,
and have children with, maybe somebodywho's a kind parent. Right, and
then towards the end of our lifethere's a lot of Wow, we really
need to care for each other inthis last act. Right, So let's
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talk about the new rules. Accordingto me for people who are beginning to
date, who may not have datedfor twenty or thirty years and things have
changed. So let me say firstand foremost that you are too old for
games that are related to old issues. There's no excuse anymore for inconsistent communication,
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no excuse for poor conflict skills.At this stage, all that family
trauma should have been attended to.If it wasn't, then why didn't you
go to therapy after your divorce?Okay, everyone should know their attachment style
now, they should know their triggers. They should be able to manage their
emotions. You're too old for allthose games and all those old issues.
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So if you meet somebody who's stillbehaving like they're in high school because they've
got old trauma, don't go outwith them. Okay, it's too Time
is short. On the other hand, there's no rush. Yes, time
is short, But if you putthe pressure of a ticking clock on your
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relationship, you know, Juley andI met almost four years ago. There
was no rush. We had eachof us a last kid to get up
and out of the nest. Wewere in the middle of a pandemic.
No one was going anywhere, butthere's not you know, we didn't rush
into anything. We are getting marriedsoon, but you know took four years.
So if somebody is rushing you,pressure to to move in together,
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are sure to have sex too quickly, pressure to get married. You need
to stop right now, okay,because this is a sign of poor boundaries
and it doesn't allow for the thoughtfulbuilding of a good, healthy partnership.
So yes, you may be inthe last act of your life, but
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let the act play out scene byscene. There is no rush. Now.
Many of you have adult kids,maybe young adult kids. Maybe if
you had babies really late, eventeenagers. If they are miners, then
I still believe that kids come first. If they are young adult kids,
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do not let them break you up, because in their little minds, they
are still dreaming somewhere back in theirunconscious that mommy and daddy will get back
together after the divorce. So ifthe person you meet wants to spend time
with their children, that's a verygood sign. If they say I hate
my kids, I don't want tosee them, that's a bad sign.
But if they say I want tospend time with their children, that's good.
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But if they're constantly canceling on youso they can be with the kids.
It's the kids manipulating, right,They're jumping in there to go,
oh, let's pull mom back,let's pull dad back. Right. So,
once you meet somebody and you've decidedthat you are going to have a
healthy relationship, make a pact thatcouples come before kids. And if you
are doing suddenly with kids, bringthe other. The two of you can
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go together for both the kids.All right. There's also a saying once
you're over sixty that many people arelooking for a nurse or a purse.
Have you ever heard that before?Keep yourself healthy if you are looking for
a relationship because you're wanting only theinstrumental care, the in sickness and in
health, but mostly sickness care,it's not going to work because you will
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have this codependent relationship from the beginning. And the same goes with the purse
thing. Financial instability is rough ifyou're in your sixties, So get your
stuff together, get your house inorder. I also want to say,
bring your tribe. We do knowthat as we get older, loneliness increases.
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People's social networks shrink and shrink andshrink. But if you meet somebody
who has like no friends and they'renot talking to any of their family.
This is a problem. It showsthat they have difficulty forming and maintaining meaningful
relationships. And finally, I haveto say this, don't look back.
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You're not going that way. Lookeveryone's got back. But if you're going
to hyper fixate on your past,if you're going to compare your new person
to past relationships, then you're nevergoing to be happy. Go forward,
don't look back, all right?A new diagnosis not for real, it's
(21:59):
not really diagnosis. The media inventsthese things all the time, but they're
fun to talk about because there actuallyis something, some behaviors behind it.
Do you have relationship? OCD?Let's talk about it when we come back.
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty kayleb
picks the best music and I'm alwaysdancing in my chair, so as I
(22:23):
let the music go on for along time because I am enjoying dancing.
That's a good song. So questionnew diagnosis relationship OCD. It's not a
real diagnosis. Okay, it's notin the DSM. It's not a real
thing. But the media likes tomake up stuff, all right, I
looked into it. In my opinion, there are two kinds of relationship OCD.
(22:49):
The first one I like to callcan't make a choice between mates.
The second one I like to callcan't make a decision to commit to the
one. So let's start from thebeginning. So I think the underbelly of
this there might be, you know, an anxiety disorder. But in my
case, in my younger days,I had this sort of anxious attachment style,
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which means that I didn't trust love, and I made choices inmates that
confirmed that love wasn't trustworthy. It'sall unconscious. You know. Friends would
look at me and go, youare smart, you have a great career,
you're beautiful. Why are you datingthese guys who treat you so badly?
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Because love isn't about finding pleasure.Love isn't about finding happiness. Love
is about finding the familiar. Ifyou've listened to my show for years,
you know that we have psychologists liketo call it an internal working model for
love in our head, which meanswe've got this idea that this is what
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love is. And where do weget this idea? Usually the first few
years of life, often before wewere even verbal and could even going on.
The most I can remember for mymodel of love is that I was
had two brothers beating me up,an exasperated mother alone on navy bases around
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the world, and Dad gone awayon a ship, and me pining away
for this man who would come homeand make everything great again. Right?
Is it always like worrying about whenis he coming home? When is he
coming home? So that became intertwinedwith my idea for love. So again
I didn't consciously pick it, butI would meet people who brought up that
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feeling of longing in me. Ilike to say I wasn't in love with
love. I was in love withlonging. And if they were emotionally avoidant,
if they were physically distant, ifthey were distant in any way,
that must have been love, becauseI'm thinking about them all the time,
so it must be love. No, that was a weird obsession. That
was a weird recreation. So Iremember one time I was dating a perfectly
(25:10):
good man and I was dating anavoidant playboy, and I could not make
a choice. I had my ownrelationship o CD. I can't make a
choice between mates. I made achart. Oh yes, I was already
into spreadsheets. Okay, I madea chart of pros and cons of each
one, and I still couldn't makea decision. So there are many people
(25:32):
out there because of the availability potentialavailability of mates on dating apps. Remember,
here's what we're wired for. Backin our anthropological past, during our
entire lifespan, a human being neverlaid eyes on more than one hundred and
fifty people. There were no newmates. Anybody you had sex with,
you knew them. They were inyour village, your tribe, whatever.
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This whole anonymous thing on dating appsis just not right for our brains or
our biology. It's not normal forus. It's not familiar to us.
But because there is this ability tohave lots of different partners, plenty of
people create a feeling of relationship securityout of pieces of partners. That's what
(26:15):
I used to do. Pieces ofpartners. I would use one person for
sex, another person for emotional support, another person because they seem to be
solid financially, another person, andI just watered down the milk. Right,
It's like I had a roster ofbackup mates while I was waiting for
mister Wright. Does it sound likeyou. You've been on those apps.
(26:36):
You're dating three or four people.That's what you're doing. You're having relationship
OCD. You can't make a choicebetween mates. Of course, the way
to get out of the cycle isto get rid of them all and start
over and date one person and justfocus on that one person. Right,
there is no human who's going towalk along and blow four people out of
the water. They're going to bejust so superhuman and perfect. That's going
(27:00):
to make you go, I'm breakingup with all four of those women I'm
seeing. Nope, that person doesn'texist. They're all human beings, even
the one that's perfect for you,They are going to be perfectly imperfect,
and you're going to learn to acceptthat. The other kind of relationship OCD
that can't make a decision to commitThese are people who are so terrified of
(27:25):
commitment. Wait, if you askpeople who are afraid of commitment, they
don't say they're afraid of commitment.They say they're afraid of the breakup.
They're afraid of divorce. I don'twant to get married because I'm afraid of
divorce. I'm like, that doesn'tmake sense. Getting married is not divorcing,
it's getting married, right. Sosome people fixate in a kind of
OCD way about have they chosen theright person? Now, there may be
(27:52):
absolutely nothing wrong with their relationship,but they think in their head, I
don't want to make the right choice, the wrong choice. I don't want
to make the wrong choice, Andso they have this kind of quandary in
their head. Should I stay,should I leave? Should I stay?
Should I leave? So, ifyou're in a relationship and you have constant
(28:14):
doubts about whether you truly love yourpartner, whether your partner is the one
for you, or you're afraid thatmaybe you're not attracted to them enough,
and also maybe you fixate on thenegative aspects of the relationship instead of the
positive. I actually knew a womanonce who went through so many great guys
(28:36):
and would nitpick and find something wrong. Oh he's got a pot belly.
Oh he's balding a little bit.Oh I don't think right. So if
you're obsessing about it, if you'repicking apart your partner and trying to make
them superhuman, then maybe you havecommitment phobia. That's what we used to
call it my day. Now it'sapparently relationship OCD. Also, if you're
(28:59):
all always worried that they're cheating,that's in you. That's inside you.
Okay, there's no evidence, butif you're just checking up on them anyway,
logging onto their phones and emails,finding looking at their location, that's
on you. You have the anxietyin you. So all these versions of
relationship OCD can't make a choice betweenmates or can't make a decision to commit.
(29:25):
The underbelly of both kinds is probablyan anxiety disorder. As I mentioned
earlier. It could be attachment anxiety, could be a generalized anxiety disorder,
could be OCD. You know whatyou need to do. You need to
reach out to a licensed therapist.There's research to show that cognitive behavioral therapy
is a great kind of therapy foranxiety disorders because it helps you challenge your
(29:51):
faulty ideas, It gives you techniquesfor calming yourself when you do have anxiety,
and at the end of the day, is sure in life. All
of us need to learn how totolerate uncertainty. Uncertainty because life is uncertain
at any given moment. We can'tcontrol everything around us. We've got to
(30:15):
take a deep breath and just jumpin that cold water, pinch our nose
and say yes to that person.Hey, when we come back, I'm
going to my social media. I'mgoing to be answering your dms. Don't
worry, I'm not going to outyou on the radio. I'm not going
to give your real name and changethings around a little bit to disguise you.
So I'm going to check Instagram andTikTok. Now the handle is at
(30:37):
doctor Wendy Walsh. At Dr WendyWalsh. I'm going to answer your relationship
questions when we come back. Youare listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show
on kf I Am six forty.We are live everywhere on that iHeartRadio app.
Right now, let's go to thetwenty four hour KFI Newsroom. You've
been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.You can always hear live on KFI AM
(31:00):
six forty from seven to nine pmon Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to KFI AM six forty the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show on demand on theiHeartRadio app. For the next two hours,
we're going to talk about everybody else'srelationship for a change, instead of
your own. Oh I don't know, maybe you might hear pieces of your
own life in some of this stuff. I'm going to talk about things like
(00:21):
did you know some of Brad Pitt'skids are dropping his name? I have
another question. New diagnosis is nota real one, but the media likes
to make up diagnoses. Do youhave relationship OCD? I'll explain Also,
if you're dating for the first timeafter the age of sixty, there are
some new rules that you need tohear. If you're known of my show,
(00:44):
I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. I havea PhD in clinical psychology. I'm
a psychology professor, not a therapist, but I am obsessed with the science
of love and I read the researchevery day. So let's get to it.
I was talking to a friend yesterdayand he is going through a divorce,
and you would think, by theway he described it to me that
(01:07):
this was just two happy campers decidingthat Okay, it's time. I do
want to remind everybody that, becauseof our very long life expectancies, even
the most monogamous of humans may seetwo or even three stint of monogamy in
their life, with some mate selectionin between. Now, every time I
(01:29):
say that, somebody sends me anemail or a direct message that says,
I don't know why you keep sayingthat my wife and I have been together
thirty four years and she's the onlyone for me. And I always say,
yay, congratulations, you're the minority, or you have a secure attachment
(01:51):
style and relationships are easy for you, and isn't that wonderful? That's great.
But the vast majority of humans maysee two, three long stints in
monogamy, or you know, theymight not even be in the monogamy box.
They might have all kinds of differentways. We have the widest range
of sexual behavior of any primate species. But you know that you've been listening
to me. So when is themost common time that people go through divorce?
(02:15):
Empty nest? You know, whenyou hear that fifty percent divorce statistic
that doesn't apply to every marriage,only applies to marriages over twenty years.
Huh, Because at that point thebusiness of raising kids is done. The
two people look at each other andgo, who are you like? Our
job's done and I want to nowremember who I was or get my mojo
(02:38):
back, et cetera. So anyway, talking to this friend and he says,
you know, it's great, We'regoing to conscious uncoupling counseling and it's
all going to be fine. AndI'm thinking it's all well and good until
he sees how long this divorce isgoing to drag out, or until one
or the other gets a new mate. It's like the divorce happens emotionally once
(03:01):
somebody gets a new mate. Youknow, it happens on paper earlier.
Now. The Brad Pitt Angelina Joleedivorce is a great example of an extended
divorce. It has been going onfor eight years. Eight years. It
is near the end now, andin case you don't know the timeline,
(03:22):
it's very simple. Back in twothousand and three, Brad Pitt met Angelina
Jolee on the set of Mister andMissus Smith. Yes, that hot energy
in that movie was real. Hewas married to Jennifer Aniston. She had
just filed from divorce, filed fordivorce from Billy Bob Thornton. Okay,
so they get married, they staytogether, and there's kids adopted and kids
(03:44):
babies or whatever, and they don'tend up getting married in twenty fourteen,
so like nine years, no,eleven years after they met. But then
in twenty sixteen, just two yearsafter the actual marriage. You might remember
in the news an alleged altercation tookplace on an airplane with Brad Pitt,
Julie, the kids, whatever.We don't know the details. There's lots
(04:04):
of conflicting stories. But immediately afterAngelina filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences,
we don't do plaining travel well together, she was given complete physical custody of
the six kids. I'm going togo through the timeline of all those kids
too. The family had to undergosomething called say harbor therapy, where a
(04:29):
doctor approved therapeutic visitation from brad Pitthad to take place. They also did
weekly counseling sessions. Also, bradPitt promised to maintain regular drug and alcohol
testing. This is serious when courtdoes that. Also, brad Pitt got
to keep each child's cell phone number. Happy Father's Day, Brad Pitt,
you got their cell phone numbers sothat he keep in contact whenever needed,
(04:51):
because the judge said, you needto have a strong, healthy relationship with
two parents. So back in twentynineteen, a judge did rule that the
Hollywood stars are now legally single,but now a five year battle over custody
of the kids over this winery inFrance that apparently they owned fifty to fifty
(05:13):
and she sold her shares without hispermission and that wasn't in the contract.
And anyway, recently he got hissixty percent controlling interest back and that means
that we are near the end ofthe eight year divorce. I'm just warning
people, divorce can be take along time. And I often say people
stay connected sometimes through divorce. Theyuse the courts and attorneys to just stay
(05:38):
connected. Now not connected through love, but connected through anger. But it
can be attachment anxiety. So ifyou're wondering about those kids. So Angelina
adopted to herself, Maddox who's twentytwo, Sahara who's nineteen. Maddox came
from Cambodia, Sahara from Ethiopia.Brad came on the scene. He adopted
them. Then they had a achild themselves, Shiloh who's eighteen packs.
(06:03):
Then they adopted from Vietnam. Thenthey had twins in two thousand and eight
who are both fifteen. Now thatare both of there, so three bio
three adopted. So get this.Last year, Zahara reportedly introduced herself as
Zahara Jo Lee at her college sororityinitiation ceremony, so she was socially dumping
(06:29):
her dad's name. Then this year, Shiloh filed a petition in a Los
Angeles court for a name change thatwould allow her to drop the pit name.
Their youngest child, Vivian, boldlyremoved Pitt from her name on the
credit of a playbill for a Broadwaymusical she was in, so again publicly
not using it. I guess she'sonly how old is she fifteen? She's
(06:51):
got away till she's eighteen. Painfulstuff for Brad, especially on Father's Day.
It is heartbreaking when kids do that. And I don't know whether it
came from the mother, whether itcame you know, there's a lot of
identity formation that happens in that age. So speaking of divorce, maybe you're
(07:15):
considering divorce maybe because you're in arelationship with somebody who's manipulative, controlling.
When we come back, let's talkabout signs that you're in a relationship where
you are being manipulated and what thatmeans. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Waalsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(07:35):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty.
You know, relationships are often aboutpower, and we would like to think
that all our intimate relationships, inall of them that we have like this
fifty to fifty balance. The truthis, in a good, healthy relationship,
(07:58):
each person should give about one hundredand ten, meaning there's a good
twenty percent of abundance left over toshare. But I also have often said
that a relationship is an exchange.Sorry, it's an exchange. I love
it when people say to me,I found my soulmat Cupid shot his bow
(08:18):
and arrow, and I just feelso in love. That's the neural hormones
that happen in early attraction. Butthe work of long term relationships has to
do with a cost benefit analysis.What do I gotta give. What are
they gonna do for me? Oh? I know that sounds cold. I
know it sounds cold, but onsome quiet little level inside your you're having
(08:43):
those thoughts. Now, a relationshipis an exchange, and that exchange is
always a form of care. Iwill care for you. I will care
for you physically. You will carefor me sexually. I will care for
you your household, will care forthe financial bank accounts. I'll care for
the kids. You care for oursocial relationship and being out, whatever it
(09:07):
may be. There's so many waysthat people exchange care, and mostly it
feels like their needs are being metfor most people. Now, when there
is a power imbalance, it meansthat one person wants more than the other.
And how do they extract that unfairbalance of care in a relationship?
(09:31):
They manipulate you, emotional manipulation.It is very common in relationships. Sadly,
the person being manipulated is usually somebodywho's very empathetic, who's sweet,
whose kind, who believes in loveand believes if love will conquer all and
if they just give, everything isgoing to be okay. And then people
(09:54):
who want to extract more care fromthem find it easy to manipulate them.
Because somebody who manipulates knows your weaknesses, they know how to use it against
you, and this is how theyend up controlling the relationship. Eventually,
(10:15):
these relationships end in divorce. Somebodyjust gets tired of being manipulated. Right
now, here's the interesting thing aboutwhen you have an emotional power imbalance.
It starts slowly, really subtly.They test you out, trying little things,
and you're so sweet and kind,you go, h, it's as
small. I'm not going to bringit up. It seems like a big
(10:37):
deal. Why should even bring thisthing up? So it starts subtly,
and then over time it becomes ingrainedin your relationship. This is the way
it is. So let's talk aboutsome of the manipulated behavior that's out there.
First of all, you hear meand the whole internet talk a lot
about gaslighting. Gaslighting, of course, is named after I think in nineteen
(11:00):
forty I don't know seven to eightmovie about a husband who tried to make
his wife think she was going madby flickering the gas lights at different times
and saying I don't see anything.I know it's tuck you about right.
So gaslighting phrases in modern times includethings like you're totally crazy, you're being
too sensitive. I think you're overreacting. By the way, just want you
(11:26):
to know, there's no such thingas an overreaction. There's just a reaction.
It happens to be your reaction andyour way of reacting. It's not
an overreaction. Okay, there's nosuch thing as being too sensitive. It's
just that you have a tender spot. You're aware of your feelings, and
you're expressing your feelings. But ifsomebody wants to gaslight you, that make
you think, ah, maybe Ishouldn't be feeling that. Maybe I shouldn't
(11:50):
be feeling that so strongly. Right, So, if your partner's telling you
you're crazy, you're overreacting, oryou're too sensitive, that is a form
of gaslighting. Then my favorite kindof manipulation the old, good old passive
aggressive behavior. So the most commonway to be passive aggressive, of course,
(12:11):
is through avoidance. Now you shouldknow, I came through many,
many decades of having kind of ananxious, ambivalent attachment style, and I
was mostly unconsciously, out of myawareness attracted to people who were avoidant,
and I was constantly upset and angryby their avoidance. But I was determined
to like make them love me,right, I couldn't stop. So they
(12:35):
might just avoid the discussion of certaintopics. Another thing they do is they
lie and they blame you. Right. They make you doubt yourself by lying
and saying it it's not that way. They also might try to control you
by isolating you, telling you theydon't like your friends or they don't like
(12:56):
your family. Remember, if youare feeling emotionally drained or God forbid,
anxious or fearful in your most intimaterelationship, you need to do something about
it. Okay, you need tobring it up, And you could just
say something like, you know whatwhen you avoid me when I bring up
(13:18):
something that's personal and emotional to me, it makes me feel sad and discouraged.
I actually want to connect with you. Is this something you're open to
talking about. If they're still dismissiveor they're still manipulating this is your problem,
then it's time for you to setboundaries. So you might say something
like, Okay, if you continueto interrupt me, call me names,
(13:39):
avoid me, whatever, tell mewhat I'm feeling. Whatever it is you
fill in the blank. I'll stophaving this conversation and I'm going to go
out because I need to take careof myself right and finally reach out to
a licensed therapist. You need amental health professional who can help you make
(14:00):
sense of this relationship. It's usuallynot you, it's them, and you
may be just being manipulated, allright, when we come back. I
was talking to somebody recently who's scaredto enter the dating world because she's sixty
five, and I said to her, did you know that peers are attracted
(14:24):
to peers across a lifespan, exceptfor a small minority of men who like
to date younger and a small minorityof women who like to be cougar's.
The truth is the media doesn't findit sexy, but people in their sixties
are mostly dating each other. Butthere are some new rules because it's a
different stage of life. Let's talkabout it when we come back. You
(14:45):
are listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from KFI AM six forty. Ioften say that the person and we're in
a relationship with enlivens a piece ofour personality. We are a different person.
(15:05):
You know. You've heard people say, oh, she makes me a
better man or he makes me abetter woman. They don't. It's just
that they appeal to a part ofyou that exists and it gets to be
enlivened when you're in their company.For instance, with my fiancee Julio,
I'm like a crumpy person. I'mnot really crumpy, am I. I'm
(15:26):
like, I don't know. Iam a little bit of a pessimist sometimes
and I live life in my homelife as sort of even keel facts.
Yeah that's what I am. I'mjust the facts anyway. He is light.
He laughs a lot, and Ilaugh a lot when I'm with him,
(15:48):
and I am a different person.I'm a lighter funny. He says
that I'm funny, which is hystericalto me. And so this is what
we do for each other. Now. We met in our fifties and not
so long ago. If you weresixty years old and you were out on
the dating scene, you will bealone. There'd be nobody there. I
(16:14):
remember, like, so, mymom died of breast cancer and she was
like sixty and my dad was likefifty nine whatever, And I said,
oh, Dad, So after weburied her in everything a little grieving time,
I said, so do you thinkyou'll ever marry again? And he
said no, Like why would I? And where would I find some?
No? No, Sadly he wasdead in less than a year of lung
(16:37):
cancer. It was a crazy timeof my life. Lung cancer, breast
cancer, all in one year.Anyway, I digress Nowadays, since for
the last fifteen years, the fastestgrowing group of people to online dating and
dating apps are people in their fiftiesand even sixties. Now there's a dating
scene for every age group. ButI mentioned that relationships are in exchange of
(17:02):
care, and our needs for differentkinds of care change across a lifespan.
Obviously, when you're young, it'sabout finding somebody maybe who's going to be
financially responsible so you can build alife with and have a mortgage with,
and have children with, maybe somebodywho's a kind parent. Right, and
then towards the end of our lifethere's a lot of Wow, we really
need to care for each other inthis last act. Right, So let's
(17:29):
talk about the new rules. Accordingto me for people who are beginning to
date, who may not have datedfor twenty or thirty years and things have
changed. So let me say firstand foremost that you are too old for
games that are related to old issues. There's no excuse anymore for inconsistent communication,
(17:52):
no excuse for poor conflict skills.At this stage, all that family
trauma should have been attended to.If it wasn't, then why didn't you
go to therapy after your divorce?Okay, everyone should know their attachment style
now, they should know their triggers. They should be able to manage their
emotions. You're too old for allthose games and all those old issues.
(18:15):
So if you meet somebody who's stillbehaving like they're in high school because they've
got old trauma, don't go outwith them. Okay, it's too Time
is short. On the other hand, there's no rush. Yes, time
is short, But if you putthe pressure of a ticking clock on your
(18:36):
relationship, you know, Juley andI met almost four years ago. There
was no rush. We had eachof us a last kid to get up
and out of the nest. Wewere in the middle of a pandemic.
No one was going anywhere, butthere's not you know, we didn't rush
into anything. We are getting marriedsoon, but you know took four years.
So if somebody is rushing you,pressure to to move in together,
(19:00):
are sure to have sex too quickly, pressure to get married. You need
to stop right now, okay,because this is a sign of poor boundaries
and it doesn't allow for the thoughtfulbuilding of a good, healthy partnership.
So yes, you may be inthe last act of your life, but
(19:22):
let the act play out scene byscene. There is no rush. Now.
Many of you have adult kids,maybe young adult kids. Maybe if
you had babies really late, eventeenagers. If they are miners, then
I still believe that kids come first. If they are young adult kids,
(19:45):
do not let them break you up, because in their little minds, they
are still dreaming somewhere back in theirunconscious that mommy and daddy will get back
together after the divorce. So ifthe person you meet wants to spend time
with their children, that's a verygood sign. If they say I hate
my kids, I don't want tosee them, that's a bad sign.
But if they say I want tospend time with their children, that's good.
(20:06):
But if they're constantly canceling on youso they can be with the kids.
It's the kids manipulating, right,They're jumping in there to go,
oh, let's pull mom back,let's pull dad back. Right. So,
once you meet somebody and you've decidedthat you are going to have a
healthy relationship, make a pact thatcouples come before kids. And if you
are doing suddenly with kids, bringthe other. The two of you can
(20:26):
go together for both the kids.All right. There's also a saying once
you're over sixty that many people arelooking for a nurse or a purse.
Have you ever heard that before?Keep yourself healthy if you are looking for
a relationship because you're wanting only theinstrumental care, the in sickness and in
health, but mostly sickness care,it's not going to work because you will
(20:49):
have this codependent relationship from the beginning. And the same goes with the purse
thing. Financial instability is rough ifyou're in your sixties, So get your
stuff together, get your house inorder. I also want to say,
bring your tribe. We do knowthat as we get older, loneliness increases.
(21:11):
People's social networks shrink and shrink andshrink. But if you meet somebody
who has like no friends and they'renot talking to any of their family.
This is a problem. It showsthat they have difficulty forming and maintaining meaningful
relationships. And finally, I haveto say this, don't look back.
(21:36):
You're not going that way. Lookeveryone's got back. But if you're going
to hyper fixate on your past,if you're going to compare your new person
to past relationships, then you're nevergoing to be happy. Go forward,
don't look back, all right?A new diagnosis not for real, it's
(21:59):
not really diagnosis. The media inventsthese things all the time, but they're
fun to talk about because there actuallyis something, some behaviors behind it.
Do you have relationship? OCD?Let's talk about it when we come back.
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh ondemand from KFI AM six forty kayleb
picks the best music and I'm alwaysdancing in my chair, so as I
(22:23):
let the music go on for along time because I am enjoying dancing.
That's a good song. So questionnew diagnosis relationship OCD. It's not a
real diagnosis. Okay, it's notin the DSM. It's not a real
thing. But the media likes tomake up stuff, all right, I
looked into it. In my opinion, there are two kinds of relationship OCD.
(22:49):
The first one I like to callcan't make a choice between mates.
The second one I like to callcan't make a decision to commit to the
one. So let's start from thebeginning. So I think the underbelly of
this there might be, you know, an anxiety disorder. But in my
case, in my younger days,I had this sort of anxious attachment style,
(23:12):
which means that I didn't trust love, and I made choices inmates that
confirmed that love wasn't trustworthy. It'sall unconscious. You know. Friends would
look at me and go, youare smart, you have a great career,
you're beautiful. Why are you datingthese guys who treat you so badly?
(23:37):
Because love isn't about finding pleasure.Love isn't about finding happiness. Love
is about finding the familiar. Ifyou've listened to my show for years,
you know that we have psychologists liketo call it an internal working model for
love in our head, which meanswe've got this idea that this is what
(24:02):
love is. And where do weget this idea? Usually the first few
years of life, often before wewere even verbal and could even going on.
The most I can remember for mymodel of love is that I was
had two brothers beating me up,an exasperated mother alone on navy bases around
(24:22):
the world, and Dad gone awayon a ship, and me pining away
for this man who would come homeand make everything great again. Right?
Is it always like worrying about whenis he coming home? When is he
coming home? So that became intertwinedwith my idea for love. So again
I didn't consciously pick it, butI would meet people who brought up that
(24:45):
feeling of longing in me. Ilike to say I wasn't in love with
love. I was in love withlonging. And if they were emotionally avoidant,
if they were physically distant, ifthey were distant in any way,
that must have been love, becauseI'm thinking about them all the time,
so it must be love. No, that was a weird obsession. That
was a weird recreation. So Iremember one time I was dating a perfectly
(25:10):
good man and I was dating anavoidant playboy, and I could not make
a choice. I had my ownrelationship o CD. I can't make a
choice between mates. I made achart. Oh yes, I was already
into spreadsheets. Okay, I madea chart of pros and cons of each
one, and I still couldn't makea decision. So there are many people
(25:32):
out there because of the availability potentialavailability of mates on dating apps. Remember,
here's what we're wired for. Backin our anthropological past, during our
entire lifespan, a human being neverlaid eyes on more than one hundred and
fifty people. There were no newmates. Anybody you had sex with,
you knew them. They were inyour village, your tribe, whatever.
(25:55):
This whole anonymous thing on dating appsis just not right for our brains or
our biology. It's not normal forus. It's not familiar to us.
But because there is this ability tohave lots of different partners, plenty of
people create a feeling of relationship securityout of pieces of partners. That's what
(26:15):
I used to do. Pieces ofpartners. I would use one person for
sex, another person for emotional support, another person because they seem to be
solid financially, another person, andI just watered down the milk. Right,
It's like I had a roster ofbackup mates while I was waiting for
mister Wright. Does it sound likeyou. You've been on those apps.
(26:36):
You're dating three or four people.That's what you're doing. You're having relationship
OCD. You can't make a choicebetween mates. Of course, the way
to get out of the cycle isto get rid of them all and start
over and date one person and justfocus on that one person. Right,
there is no human who's going towalk along and blow four people out of
the water. They're going to bejust so superhuman and perfect. That's going
(27:00):
to make you go, I'm breakingup with all four of those women I'm
seeing. Nope, that person doesn'texist. They're all human beings, even
the one that's perfect for you,They are going to be perfectly imperfect,
and you're going to learn to acceptthat. The other kind of relationship OCD
that can't make a decision to commitThese are people who are so terrified of
(27:25):
commitment. Wait, if you askpeople who are afraid of commitment, they
don't say they're afraid of commitment.They say they're afraid of the breakup.
They're afraid of divorce. I don'twant to get married because I'm afraid of
divorce. I'm like, that doesn'tmake sense. Getting married is not divorcing,
it's getting married, right. Sosome people fixate in a kind of
OCD way about have they chosen theright person? Now, there may be
(27:52):
absolutely nothing wrong with their relationship,but they think in their head, I
don't want to make the right choice, the wrong choice. I don't want
to make the wrong choice, Andso they have this kind of quandary in
their head. Should I stay,should I leave? Should I stay?
Should I leave? So, ifyou're in a relationship and you have constant
(28:14):
doubts about whether you truly love yourpartner, whether your partner is the one
for you, or you're afraid thatmaybe you're not attracted to them enough,
and also maybe you fixate on thenegative aspects of the relationship instead of the
positive. I actually knew a womanonce who went through so many great guys
(28:36):
and would nitpick and find something wrong. Oh he's got a pot belly.
Oh he's balding a little bit.Oh I don't think right. So if
you're obsessing about it, if you'repicking apart your partner and trying to make
them superhuman, then maybe you havecommitment phobia. That's what we used to
call it my day. Now it'sapparently relationship OCD. Also, if you're
(28:59):
all always worried that they're cheating,that's in you. That's inside you.
Okay, there's no evidence, butif you're just checking up on them anyway,
logging onto their phones and emails,finding looking at their location, that's
on you. You have the anxietyin you. So all these versions of
relationship OCD can't make a choice betweenmates or can't make a decision to commit.
(29:25):
The underbelly of both kinds is probablyan anxiety disorder. As I mentioned
earlier. It could be attachment anxiety, could be a generalized anxiety disorder,
could be OCD. You know whatyou need to do. You need to
reach out to a licensed therapist.There's research to show that cognitive behavioral therapy
is a great kind of therapy foranxiety disorders because it helps you challenge your
(29:51):
faulty ideas, It gives you techniquesfor calming yourself when you do have anxiety,
and at the end of the day, is sure in life. All
of us need to learn how totolerate uncertainty. Uncertainty because life is uncertain
at any given moment. We can'tcontrol everything around us. We've got to
(30:15):
take a deep breath and just jumpin that cold water, pinch our nose
and say yes to that person.Hey, when we come back, I'm
going to my social media. I'mgoing to be answering your dms. Don't
worry, I'm not going to outyou on the radio. I'm not going
to give your real name and changethings around a little bit to disguise you.
So I'm going to check Instagram andTikTok. Now the handle is at
(30:37):
doctor Wendy Walsh. At Dr WendyWalsh. I'm going to answer your relationship
questions when we come back. Youare listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show
on kf I Am six forty.We are live everywhere on that iHeartRadio app.
Right now, let's go to thetwenty four hour KFI Newsroom. You've
been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.You can always hear live on KFI AM
(31:00):
six forty from seven to nine pmon Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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