By Whitney Baker Johnson and Andrea Surujnauth
You probably recognize Dr. Wendy Walsh from Good Morning America, FOX News or the Today Show. She’s a well-known relationship expert, psychotherapist, author and actress. Currently, she appears as the expert commentator on Investigation Discovery’s Happily Never After, a show that looks at stories of newlyweds who’s marriage turned deadly shortly after saying their vows. “My job is to retrace the romantic steps of both partners and figure out what red flag could’ve saved the bride or groom’s life,” she explains.
Despite her busy schedule, she found time to write a new book, The 30-Day Love Detox, which was released on April 23rd. In it, Dr. Walsh answers common questions that women want to know: How can I stop falling for the wrong type of guy? How can I find a man who is willing to commit? She also lists common mistakes that women make when dating someone new and shares her tips for avoiding them. The author chatted with us about her ground-breaking new book.
What inspired you to write The 30-Day Love Detox?
I’m a single mother, and I wanted to explore the social reasons why a very smart, very attractive woman like myself would “end up” as a single parent. And what I discovered is the more educated a woman is, the more attractive she is, the more cities she’s lived in, the more likely she is to be divorced. Attractive women will leave relationships earlier, they say, because they have more sexual opportunities than others. Having a higher education means that women are often using up their fertility window on schooling and careers and grabbing whoever they can at the end of their fertility window. The more places you live during your childhood, the less likely you are to have a committed relationship. Moving around, instead, teaches you to have a lot of mobility. It teaches you how to say goodbye.
How did you come up with the title?
It’s called The 30-Day Love Detox because I found a study that showed that, if you have sex within 30 days of meeting somebody, you have a 90 percent chance of breaking up with them within one year. If you wait 31-90 days, you have a one in four chance that you’ll be together a year later because you’ve taken the time to build some kind of friendship, some kind of emotional bond. Unfortunately, plenty of women think that a hookup is a stepping stone to a relationship. But I promise you that not one man thinks that! The true aphrodisiac is saying “no.”
Related Link: Is He In It for the Long Haul?
You say that you saw yourself as Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Can you elaborate on this idea?
The Sex and the City generation and even young women today have been sold a false bill of goods, a mythology if you will, by the fertility clinics who market that women can have a baby when they’re 50, which is absolutely absurd. The success rates for in vitro fertilization have not changed since the 1980s; it’s about a 15 percent success rate, and it costs 13,700 dollars on average. So that means for your hard-earned money, you’ve got an 85 percent chance of failing.
My point is that 80 percent of women are going to become mothers – good boyfriend or not, good husband or not. And where they end up financially, psychologically and physically at the age of 45 has to do with the choices they make in their 20s.
Can you share any positive results that people have seen after doing The 30-Day Love Detox?
Well, I did backward research. First, I held a series of wine-and-cheese focus groups for single women to hear the stories of what’s been going on in the dating market place. Then, I went on a hunch and interviewed married women with children who were in, what I believe is, a healthy relationship, and I asked them how long they waited before they had sex with their husbands. I found that a number of them actually even waited until marriage. One of the things that people do as a reaction to the high-supply sexual economy is check out of it by saying, “I’m not even going to participate in this nonsense.” So I found a population of post-modern virgins; some of them are married now, and some of them are single women who don’t use religion as a reason for staying a virgin in their 20s. Instead, they stay a virgin so that they can take the time to find a real relationship.
Let’s shift gears a bit. Our readers are fans of reality shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Do you think those shows are helpful in teaching viewers how to find good partners? Or do they ultimately damage our perspective of relationships and love?
I think they hurt as much as romantic comedies do because nobody is teaching anybody relationship skills. They don’t practice slow love. They also subscribe to the myth that if you just choose the right partner, everything will be okay. The truth is being a good partner with good relationship skills will increase your chances of having a long, healthy, happy relationship. A great example is people who divorce and say, “Oh well, my second marriage is going to be better because I’m going to choose better.” But divorce doesn’t teach you how to choose better; it doesn’t teach you how to be a better partner. Divorce only teaches you to say goodbye. Therefore, second marriages actually have a much higher divorce rate because the only thing divorce teaches you is how to survive divorce, and once you learn how to do that, it’s even easier to leave the second time.
Related Link: Cancelled: Why NBC’s ‘Ready for Love’ Fueled America’s Hatred
Can you tell us about any other projects that you have coming up?
Yes! I’m developing an app based around my book The Boyfriend Test. Women will be able to crowd source the guys that they’re dating. They can share a picture and biographical information and then ask other girls if they know them, if they’ve dated them, if they think he’d be a good boyfriend. The Boyfriend Test itself is also coming out as an e-book right after The 30-Day Love Detox. And I’m continuing to shoot Happily Never After – we have a whole new season for you!
You can purchase a copy of The 30-Day Love Detox in bookstores and online from Amazon. For more information about Dr. Wendy Walsh, visit drwendywalsh.com. Be sure to check her out on Facebook and Twitter too.
