Dr. Wendy Walsh: Healing Attachment Wounds For Successful Dating and Relationships

Dec 22, 2020

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Get ready for another fast-moving, hard-hitting show with Dr. Wendy Walsh! Dr. Wendy is back for a third appearance to break down all the reasons why healing attachment wounds is integral to a healthy and successful relationship, and as always, brings her fresh and spicy perspective to the table as we discuss all things related to dating and relationships.

In this episode, we confront the possibility that you (and all of us) are replaying a story of relationship dysfunction, get to the bottom of where this repetitive dysfunction is stemming from, and learn a practical, step-by-step approach for healing the root of these issues.

Some key takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Wendy:

Relationships are less about luck than they are about skill: “It’s not about finding the right mate, it’s becoming the right mate.”
A solid couple that lasts a long time is based on three things:

1.) Sociology (what the dating apps look for; what somebody looks like on paper)

2.) Biology (whether your pheromones are a good match)

3.) Psychology (mainly relating to early life attachments)

The most vulnerable period of a person’s life are ages 0-3. This is because you are preverbal, so you can’t process events, especially painful events, like a story. This is why this time is so critical for development.
You can absolutely change your attachment style in life, and a huge part of that is choosing a partner that does not feel familiar.
A relationship is an “exchange of care.”
“Our unconscious processes in our early life experiences shape our personality and dominate our behavior through the lifespan.”
“Someone who has a secure attachment style can give and receive care equally.”
Dr. Wendy has a favorite metaphor for personal growth: “You’re walking down the street, you don’t see a hole, and you fall in that hole. That’s the level that most people are operating at. But when you decide, I’m going to make a change and I’m going to grow and understand. So then, Stage Two is, you’re walking down the street, and now, you see the hole! And you fall in it. Stage Three is when you walk down the street, you see that hole, and you very carefully use your mind to step around that hole. And Stage Four? You take a different street. And that’s how attachment injuries and so many other physiological injuries get healed.”

Catch up with Dr. Wendy’s podcast, Mating Matters, here, and if you missed her first two appearances on the podcast, click here for the first show, Evolutionary Psychology Applied To Modern Love, and here for the second show on Successful Long-Term Relationships, Gratitude, Positive Attitudes, Healthy Parenting, The Future of Humanity, and Matters of Mating.

TIMESTAMPS:

Brad introduces Dr. Wendy who talks about how the injuries from early childhood influence your choice of partners. [01:35]

Four relationship attributes are physical attraction, emotional regulation, empathy, and impulse control. [04:38]

Why don’t dating apps include negatives along with the positives? [06:04]

What is the chemical process of attraction? [07:31]

If your own psychological attachment styles are not a good match, you're going to have problems. [09:38]

Women place far less emphasis on looks because they’re more tuned to go for intelligence, which is often showcased through humor. [10:27]

What is attachment theory? We form kind of a blueprint for love based on the kind of attachment we had with our primary caregivers. [12:34]

What works is: See it. Realize it. Understand it and process it from your emotional brain. [16:13]

The one common denominator in a relationship and is you! [21:35]

We subconsciously seek a person representing our loving experience from childhood. [22:12]

Some people say therapy is reparenting. [24:02]

Your parent-child relationships can be a do-over for you, the parent. [26:34]

What is the difference between somebody with a secure attachment and somebody who’s avoidant and just physically there? [27:43]

In long-term relationships, couples therapy is important because everyone is constantly growing and changing and you need to learn to accommodate. [32:35]

In an emotionally fused relationship, it is not about time spent, it’s about mental energy space. [37:12]

When questioning, if this is too much work, the best thing to do is to go to personal therapy and learn your part of the interaction. [38:21]

You could have unrealistic expectations about being a perfect person or an expectation of what love is. [39:50]

Kids are little sponges. They know what’s going on. [41:35]

LINKS:

QUOTES:

“At the end of the day, we are wired to bond….there are so many mental and physical health benefits of being able to show yourself to somebody in an intimate way.”

“Relationships are a Venn diagram: they’re two circles overlapping. And if the circles are too close, you get a fused relationship, where nobody can remember whose problem is whose. But if they are too autonomous and separate, then there is no intimacy. So you want to keep a good chunk of your circle, your sense of self, your autonomy, growing — so you have something to bring back in to the relationship.”

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