Joan Childs, psychotherapist of 47 years and author of five books, including her latest, Do You Hate the One You Love.

This is a transcript of the conversation between myself, Brandi Fleck, Host of the Human Amplified podcast, and Joan Childs, a 47-Year Psychotherapist who’s saving relationships during politically charged times.

If you’d rather listen than read, you can do that here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

About Joan Childs

Brandi Fleck:

What does being human mean to you?

Joan Childs:

I'm glad you really clarified it by what it means to me, because if you would ask people who are authorities in primatology, like Robert Sapolsky, and he's an author, a neuroscientist, a primatologist, professor at Stanford University, he would have a much different response to that question than me.

So from my personal and professional experience, being human is really being, first of all, you need to have other people in your life, which is not different than animals that live in communities. So in many ways, we are a lot like different species animals. We have some of the same qualities, aggression. They kill people in their communities. We do the same. We have empathy, and so do they. We live by the golden rule, I hope, and we do unto others. We learn this in kindergarten, as you would have others do unto you.

And so in many ways, the theory is that he is right. He, except in one area, he believes in no free will. And I do not. I believe we do have free will because if I didn't believe that, my 47 years as a therapist would be a sham. Because I have been lucky enough and excited enough to see changes in people due to the plasticity in our brains and to see people come out of the past, the wounds, the traumas, and to be able to have this personal growth and development, I think that really identifies human beings, to be able to have a sense of humanity, to be able to have the ability to communicate and articulate and to be able to be compassionate, to have a sense of purpose, like I mentioned a moment ago, and a sense of passion, a connection, which is one of the most important things in humanity because we need other people. We need connection.

And to be able to have this ability to do growth and to have a sense of development so that we can also have a change of perspective, that we don't have to be stuck in some kind of a belief system because that was where we came from. And just for an example, he talks about if you're born in Gaza, it's different than being born in California. And I can agree with that because we get indoctrinated by certain parental belief systems. And we get brainwashed by wherever we're born and whatever our religion is and whatever our parenting was given to us. If we came from a dysfunctional family, certainly we're going to grow up different than parents who guided us through life.

And of course, every family is dysfunctional to a greater or lesser degree. So we'll be able to have the ability to change and to be able to come out of a past that might have been very corruptive and very dysfunctional to us and to be able to make that change. Because this is what I've been doing for 47 years. And it's wonderful to see people who don't really know who they are. And part of being human is to really get a connection with yourself so you can have a connection with others. And I think that's a distinction between different species and being a human. It's a great question. I could go on for the whole hour and give you more information why I believe that human beings have differences, mainly in the free will. I think that if we didn't have free will, if free will didn't exist, there's no such thing as being a therapist. You might as well give it up because you know and people come to me because they get to recognize that some of their behaviors have been self-destructive or counterproductive and they want to change and i think that's one of the biggest things about human beings is that not only do they have a desire to change but they have the ability to change i hope that that was not exactly brief, but you can't answer that question briefly.

Brandi Fleck:

And that's a great point. And I loved your answer. I've read a lot of Robert Sapolsky's work, and I totally agree that free will, I agree with you that free will is a thing. So I love that. And I love how you mentioned that you have to, as humans, connect with yourself first before you can have real connections with other people. I think sometimes people miss that.

Joan Childs:

Well, we can even take that to the next step when it comes to couples and say that you have to have a sense of autonomy. Who am I? Why am I here? Before you can have intimacy…you can't have intimacy without autonomy so I think that that that's a very important thing is to be able to know who you are why you're here what you know what's your purpose in life who have you hurt whoever you were made amends to and who are you who have you forgiven. People who have hurt you which is you know it's very distinctively different than the animal kingdom in many ways, more than I can even share with you. It's pretty obvious.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah. Everyone, today we're talking to Joan Childs, coming to us from Hollywood, Florida. Joan Childs is a renowned psychotherapist, author, and relationship expert with over 47 years of clinical experience. As a pioneer in encounter-centered couples therapy, Joan has dedicated her career to healing fractured relationships and guiding individuals towards self-actualization. Her therapeutic journey has included individual, couples, group, and family therapy, earning her certifications in transformative modalities such as EMDR, hypnosis, and inner child work. Joan's book, Do You Hate the One You Love?, is a profound exploration of the complexities of modern relationships through real-life insights and years of clinical wisdom. The book dissects how unresolved traumas impact relationships and provides actionable solutions for couples seeking to rebuild intimacy and connection. And we're going to be talking about some of that here today, as I'm sure you gleaned from Joan's answer about what it means to be human. So, Joan, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here.

Joan Childs:

Well, me too, Brandi, and thank you for inviting me.

Brandi Fleck:

Absolutely.

Well, so before we really dive in, what else do you want listeners and viewers to know about you?

Joan Childs:

Well, I'm a mother of five children. I'm a grandmother of eight. And it's like a rainbow. If a rainbow only had the color of red, it wouldn't be a rainbow any longer. So we really can't identify ourselves by what we do. It's who we are. I have a life partner. And aside from being in private practice for 47 years, I've written four books. And the one that you're talking about as a revision of one of them, so you could save five.

And I've done lectures and workshops. I mean, I can't believe when I identify all the things that I am, it's like a kaleidoscope for me of human behavior. But it keeps me young. I'm 85 years old, and I'm still going strong. And I don't intend to ever really stop working because I'm not the kind of a person that plays pickleball or marjan or cards, have lunch with the girls. Occasionally I do. But I have this sense of purpose and passion that has always been part of who I've been, even as a child. So I think that pretty much wraps it up of who I am, what I do. Wonderful. Okay. And I'm going to be changing the license of therapists after these many, many years, almost 50, into morphing it into coaching, life coaching, relationship coaching, and executive coaching.

Why So Many People Get Divorced

Brandi Fleck:

Wonderful. Okay, well, I'll be interested to see how that journey goes for you. I feel like this all sounds amazing, that passion and purpose. And you mentioned you have a life partner. And I'm curious, why is divorce so common? And is marriage, and this might be a big question, but is marriage a failing institution?

Joan Childs:

Well, there are several reasons. I'll try to identify the ones that I'm very aware of because I work with couples. I think there's several reasons. There's a lack of maturity when you get married because we really haven't developed what we call a frontal lobe, which is our execution. I don't mean killing. I mean, it's to execute our thoughts and our feelings into trying to make things work out. It's not really fully developed. And we have a very, as young people, we might have very unrealistic expectations of marriage. Some people get married to get away from home. Some people get married to have someone to take care of themselves or get married to have children. So a lot of the reasons that young people get married are not exactly healthy. And they don't really know themselves at that point.

So we do have over 50% of divorces. And many people don't know how to communicate because they came from families of origin where good communication, effective communication was never modeled. One of the things I have in my life history questionnaire is how did your parents resolve their conflicts? And when you get the answers and I read them, they never did. And, you know, it just, they'd sweep it under the carpet and then they went to the next time they did it again and again and again. So nothing was ever resolved until the act of not being able to resolve conflicts creates a polluted space in the relationship, the relational space, because the relationship doesn't live in the partners. It lives in the space between. And that space really needs to be sacred space. And what happens when you don't resolve issues and it's not clean, the space is contaminated or polluted, as I said, and that's where the children live.

So you really, what's happening is that you start reacting to the danger in the space and then you start becoming less interested and working together. And then the love that you had under the, when you were first under the chuppah, which we call in Jewish weddings, but they have the altar. The love that you had when you looked into each other's eyes and you saw through almost like the windows of the soul. People don't look at each other anymore when they get married and they get angry and they get disenchanted. And all of a sudden, the things that you once loved becomes things that you don't love anymore. As a matter effect, become dislike. And then eventually you start to feel this anger, this distrust. And then the relationship starts and grows into where it becomes frightening to be in the relationship because people don't know how to deal with their issues. They've never been taught the modeling that they had as children was all that they had.

So when that relationship starts to spoil and becomes disenchanting, the couple becomes further and further apart from each other. They grow apart. And then when they don't get their needs met, they look for those needs being met outside of the relationship. That's when a lot of people have affairs or they develop interest. They sublimate that need into something like workaholism or alcoholism or drug addiction, because they're still feeling that they're not getting their needs and they're not really recognizing to fix the relationship. They're acting out their anger or their sadness, their despair, rather than actually working towards what do we need to do to make this work. It takes commitment. It takes cooperation. It takes collaboration. It takes communication. And a lot of young people just don't have the ability. They haven't learned it. So most marriages end, there's like four stages of a relationship or a marriage, both.

And they never get through that second stage.

The Stages of a Relationship

First stage is codependency. You look in each other's eyes and everything is wonderful. And you like certain kind of ice cream. I like the same ice cream. Or you like this kind of a movie. Oh, I love that movie, music. And then all of a sudden, that lasts about maybe 18 months.

And then you go into counter-dependency, where like a child, first, they're codependent on the mother. And they need the mother. And then at the second stage, they start crawling and moving away. And then depending upon how the mother responds to that and allows that kind of autonomy to occur, That's how the child will develop healthy in that second stage.

And then the third stage is just the same as going to kindergarten or going to school. It's really when there is interdependence, you do your thing, I'll do mine.

And the fourth stage is like interpersonal development, interpersonal interaction, when they really support each other in whatever their journey is off. So these four stages take maturity. It takes really healthy communication, effective communication. And most people don't know how to do that. And it's one of the most important jobs in our life is being a partner in marriage or a partner in life and also having children. So we have multi-generational toxic shame if we don't stop what we knew that we thought was the way to do things. Because when we do what comes naturally, it's not necessarily healthy. That is really interesting that the four stages of a relationship kind of mimic the parent-child development. Our own development from birth until we become adults.

I think her name was Susan Forward who wrote the book about these four stages of development. A relationship is the same thing. So it takes a lot of time, energy, money, commitment that we want to work.

When Couples Therapy is a Good Idea or Not

I won't see couples unless I get a big fat yes from both of them. Meaning, do you really want to make this work?

And if I get one person that'll say, well, we've tried so many times and we really just can't get it to work. And so I'm not sure I really think this is going to work. I won't even take the couple because I can't really effectuate positive change in a relationship unless both people are all in, both in, all in. So it takes that kind of commitment, that kind of maturity. And when they realize they've had 10 or 12 or 15 years invested in the relationship, there is a reason to try to make it work because all they're going to do when they get out of the relationship is copy it with somebody else.

And what we have in statistics is that when first relationships break up, let's say 50%, the second relationship breaks up even faster and more and the third even more. So it's best to get it straightened out while you're in your first, if possible, because in some relationships, you really can't fix. There's no question. If people are being abused, whether it's physically or mentally or gaslighting, whenever there's one couple that we have a real serious, the partners have a serious character disorder or personality disorder like narcissism, where they're really being hurt continually and feeling less than and putting down all this time.

And certain partners don't want to change because they like who they are. And so you cannot really fix something that's really where both partners are not all in to fix it. They have to be mentally healthy to a certain extent also. It's a conundrum. There's no question about it.

Brandi Fleck:

Gotcha. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense that you can't affect change if both partners aren't fully committed. And so you mentioned that in situations where there is some form of abuse or certain disorders that it might not be repairable. Are there other times or situations where a relationship is too far gone to be repaired?

Joan Childs:

Well, I'm sure there are. And the big thing is the commitment that because it's painful, it's work, it takes time, it takes money. It's another investment. But I've always believed when you invest in yourself, you never lose.

But not only in marriages and anything, but there are times, you know, when a lot of marriages break up because some of the acting out behaviors, whether they're addicted to drugs or alcohol or workaholism, whatever, anything that is an addiction. The other partner really can't feel the connection any longer with their partner because they're not dealing with the essence or the authenticity of the partner. They're dealing with some kind of a survival self, a survival suit, a false self.

I will not see anybody, even an individual psychotherapy, if they are not clean and sober. And by that, I mean, not just alcohol and drugs, gambling, whatever the addiction is, they have to really work on that first, because you're not dealing with the person, the authenticity, rather, of a person. You're dealing with their survival suit, because underneath the survival suit is the essence of the person. So that's the first thing they have to do. And if you're in a relationship where one person is in a serious addiction, whether it's pornography or whether it's sex and love addiction or acting out with affairs and they can't stop.

And there's a lot of relationships like that. In my book, I talk about that. I've got a couple of chapters on what you're asking me.

So there has to be a willingness. There has to be, like I said, a commitment because it does take a long time. I mean, it isn't like you're going to go for two or three sessions and all of a sudden, you know, it's better. It's not because most people bring the unconscious wounds and traumas of their childhood into their marriage or into their relationship. And that gets acted out one way or the other. And that destroys. It's offensive to what they're trying to build. It's counterproductive. So they have to work on themselves, but it can be in the context of working in the relationship, in couple's counseling.

Individual Trauma Infecting Relationships

The way I do it anyway, it does really work with the individual issues that are infecting the diseases that are going on, the emotional diseases that are going on inside that relational space that's supposed to be sacred. This is according to Martin Buber, the famous philosopher. And Freud talked about the need to repeat. He called it repetition compulsion. So people unconsciously choose partners that are not too unlike one of their parents who they either identified with or which one they identified with. So many of them are really marrying their mothers or their fathers and repeating the behaviors of what they're familiar with, which was their family of origin.

And they're not even aware of it until you point that out somehow. Where did this happen before in your life? And then suddenly an aha movement. Well, my father used to behave like this or my mother never treated me with any respect, blah, blah, blah. And then they realized that there's like a connection, that picture that they give children in kindergarten to connect the dots. Then all of a sudden they say you're a giraffe. Well, they get an aha moment. They recognize that this is something that happened to me when I was young. And then you've got to clean up the past. There are certain modalities, like you spoke about, that we use to try to discharge the anger, the sadness, the despair, the hurt. Because anger actually doesn't come, it's not a primary feeling. It comes from being hurt. When you get hurt, you get angry.

And it's very part of, it's much of the human, part of the human condition. That when somebody hurts you, you get angry. And that has to be resolved. That anger stays inside as you get older. The heart stays inside and it infects the illness of the relationship if we don't clean it up. It's something that's been there for a long time. So again, that's a long answer to your question, but it's a very good question that you asked me. Yeah, and that's That's great. What are some examples of how you would clean up that space, the relationship space, that is infected with trauma? How would you do that in couples therapy? Well, I was trained by a wonderful mentor, Hedy Schleifer, who talked about what they call encounter-centered transformation therapy. You put the couple, two chairs, looking at each other with about 18 inches of space between them. and I'll sit between them, not in the middle of them, but outside of the two of them.

And the whole process of crossing the bridge to the other person's neighborhood and learning about their language, the landscape of their face for the first time. Because many of them, when they argue, they don't even look at each other. And I have to teach them the art of presencing. So I'll start by having them just spend about four or five minutes just looking into the eyes of each other, holding each other's hands with a little space between them. Having the woman put her legs into her partner's legs so there's a connection physically hands legs and focusing and when i say woman it can be it can be a gay or a lesbian couple also and you want to make that very clear that it's any couple they're together and they have to spend about like i said three four or five minutes focusing just looking in the eyes and not saying a word. And you'd be amazed how that triggers emotions, just looking into the eyes. And then I'll say, see if you can see the little girl in her eyes. And I'll say, and see if you can look and see the little boy in Michael's eyes, or have them just try to imagine what they were like, their partners when they were children. And not say a word, just stay focused on the eyes. That takes about five minutes, and it never, ever fails.

Tears will come up on both partners, and suddenly there isn't a connection again, which has been dissipated over the years that they were together. So it's the first form of connecting, and then the process of crossing the bridge. One person is a host, one person is a visitor, and the host will invite the visitor to come over to her or his side. And take them down a street called anxiety or abandonment or fear or aloneness, anything that they, one word. There is an economy of words in this process. So it isn't like watching a tennis match where one person says, well, she never listens. You never listen to me. Well, I always have to try to make you listen, but you don't know how to listen. It stops that. That's something I don't even have anything to do it because they're only allowed to say five to eight words so if she's a host and she invites her over and i'm only using a heterosexual couple as an example it works like i said with gay and lesbians also or any couples you can put fathers and daughters fathers and sons mothers and daughters mothers and sons any couples even business partners, so well the host will invite the visitor and the visitor she would say something just as an example I'd like to invite you over to my neighborhood on the street called loneliness.

And his job is to say, thank you for inviting me. I'm coming over now. I hear that what I heard you say is that you would like to invite me over to your neighborhood down the street called loneliness. Am I with you? And then she says, yes, you are. And he says, I'm coming over now. Now, me as the therapist would say, okay, I want you to imagine you're taking an imaginary bridge and you're crossing over, leaving everything that's yours behind you. And all you need to do is take a plastic bag with a passport. And I'm going to be the customs agent to make sure you're not bringing any of your stuff over to her. Once you land there, you are in her neighborhood. You were going down a street called loneliness. is. And so I have them visualize a brain bridge. Well, it's not even a brain bridge exactly true. You know, the brain is the only organ in our body that cannot self-regulate. We need another brain in order to self-regulate. So I have them imagine they're walking over a bridge and they're landing in her neighborhood. And he says, I'm here and I have all the time to be with you. She says, thank you for coming. And on my street of loneliness, I feel that you're not, we're not connected.

That's all she can say. And then he has to say, what I heard you say is that on your street, in your neighborhood, on your street of loneliness, is that you have a feeling that we are no longer connected. Am I with you? And if he says it just the way she says it, she will say, yes, you are. And then he says, tell me more. And she's only allowed to say, remember five to eight, maybe even 10 words at both.

It's been so many years that you haven't been home for dinner with me.

Or it's been so long since you've told me you love me. Or it's been so long since we had special times together. Or it's been so long when we've made love. Anything that she wants to say, but that's it. And then he says, so what I heard you say, this is a listening skill now. Because he has to really be aware. And if he says something that's not exactly like that, but almost like that, she's supposed to, because I have to give them instructions on this. So she's supposed to say, meanwhile, I'm sitting right there and I'm having them look into each other's eyes the entire time. And if they don't, I will take my hand. I don't know if you can see this. And I would go to point to keep your eyes on her eyes. She has to keep her eyes on his eyes.

And they cross over the bridge and he has to repeat. And if they don't say exactly what she meant, she'll say, when he says, am I with you? She will say, almost. What I really need you to hear is blah, blah, blah. And he has to repeat that again. So it isn't much dialogue. It's very specific. And this will go on. And then at some point, somehow magically, it goes into the unconscious a little bit after a while because they're not just really talking. It's not talk therapy. It's really encounter. He encounters her. That visit is an encounter.

Somehow he will say, oh, I will, I might say, this is when my part comes in. Has there ever been a time in your life when somebody never really had made you feel so lonely? And boom, you go right back to childhood. Oh, my mother never talked to me when she got angry with me. There could have been days or weeks that we never spoke. So now you're back in your child's work. It goes on and on, just like that, back and forth, back and forth. And there's a lot of expressions, a lot of emotions that come up. He gets to see her pain. He gets to know what happened to her, things that she might never have told him, not because she was trying to keep a secret, but because there was never that space to have that kind of communication. So now suddenly, he's hearing something, and he recognizes that this is not just about him. This is about what happened to her that she's brought to the relationship. And then, of course, it's the opposite way, where he gets to be the host, and she gets to be the visitor. And I write that in my book. I think it's called The Bridge Chapter, The Bridge Under Troubled Waters. And show people. So the readers are like a flying on the wall. And they can visually see and auditorily hear the exchange that I just had with you. So I'm sorry for the long winded. But I had to explain something. That question was really very provocative.

When One Partner Does the Work without The Other

Brandi Fleck:

I really appreciate that explanation. And I think it's good news that people can heal their traumas in relationship and in relationship therapy. Because, yeah, something that has come up for me and even some of my coaching clients is that when they start doing individual work on themselves, some of their relationships start to disintegrate because the other people in relationship with them aren't doing the work or they don't need to or they don't want to. And sometimes it comes as a surprise to both parties that, oh, this isn't working for me anymore. She's setting boundaries now. She's more empowered now. And that's not how it used to be. I want it to be how it used to be. So is there a time when, well, I guess just to be really direct, is it always a death sentence for a couple if one person is doing the work when another is not?

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Joan Childs:

[32:47] Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, it can be helpful because when one person changes and creates boundaries and changes behaviors that they didn't have before, and that person is becoming happier for those changes that they made and not willing to put up with the abuse or the abandonment or the neglect or whatever the other person the other person can also recognize that I may lose him or I may lose her and not want that to happen and it might instill or motivate them to say well I want to get help also and that's when that that can really happen—this is a dynamic it's like does the husband drink because the wife nags or does the wife nag because the husband drinks so it's got to be it doesn't really matter if one person stops if he stops drinking. She will stop nagging. And if she stops nagging, that person might consider drinking because there's a positive reward for the change of one person's behavior.

I'm seeing a lot of clients now where there's the same thing that you write that you just identified. Well, she used to be much more submissive and willing to do things that I wanted to do. And now she doesn't do the same things anymore.

So if anyone has any kind of intellect, we'll say, what's going on here? Now, I don't want this to continue rather than I want her to be the way she used to be. If they are a narcissist, they will not usually do that. They'll say, this is who I am. You don't like it. Then there's the door, baby. Don't let it hit you in the ass.

So it depends on how well developed and how healthy the other person is with behaviors because we all have behaviors as human beings you're going back to your primary question what is it like to be human we all make mistakes none of us are perfect and there's no relationship that's perfect and we have to live with imperfections and the idea of having dignity in a relationship and respecting another person's point of view

Navigating Politically Charged Relationship Tension

I mean right now we're in the middle of a major crisis, but you but you actually mentioned it, about the political situation where we're so divisive.

You know, and you can have one partner. I'm in a situation like that. My partner is on the opposite side politically of me, but he has wonderful, wonderful traits. His character is beautiful. And I never could understand, you know, because to me, politics underneath politics are values, principles, belief systems. And how do you connect with somebody that doesn't suddenly have what your values are, but he does have the values. He just has another way of looking at another perspective of looking at, I don't know if your patients, if your people can see this, but I'm going to hold it up and I'll read it: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

So if you look at this you can see one person sees three logs and the other person sees four can you see that so everyone has a different perspective if you have a love relationship and you want to maintain the dignity and the integrity of the relationship.

Joan Childs holding up a quote to demonstrate perspective in relationships in her interview with Brandi Fleck.

You have to really realize that you must have respect for another person's, not necessarily that you respect their opinion, but you respect them for having a different opinion. And you can't let that corrupt the relationship, which is what's going on right now in friendships. I mean, people are not talking to each other because of what's going on with them. I don't want to talk about politics at all, but the divisiveness itself has cut people's friendships. People are getting divorced. or separated or wondering, do I need to really want to be with this person when they can't really see the value that I have in X, Y, and Z.

And this is serious. I don't think in my lifetime I've ever seen anything like this. And I'm 85. So I've been around since I was born in 1939. And I grew up in the 50s when Eisenhower was president and Jimmy Carter was president. and even before that when Truman was president, I never saw what we're seeing now, what we're experiencing. But if you want to maintain the integrity and two people are mature, they will learn that people do have differences. And that's what makes us human, again, that we are more alike to different, but we do have differences. And in a relationship, you have to be able to somehow work out, how do you work this out? and you have to work it out with respect for each other and maintain a sense of dignity and integrity in the relationship and put your feelings aside. Well, this is how I feel. I'm not changing my mind, but this is how he feels. I'm not changing his mind. And we let it be. Or we, I think it was Mel Robbins that came out with a new book, Let Them. Let Them. Let Them. So, you know, it's really let them. Let them be who they are. And don't try to make, don't ever try to affect you a change in your partner because you can't, if I can't do it, you certainly can't do it, but the work will do it.

And they both want to. And it's sad that it would break up relationships, but it really runs deep. I've seen it. I'm watching it every day, not just in relationships of couples who are married or life partners, but in good friendships, people who have been friends for years that no longer are friends. And that's so sad that it runs that deep.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah. Just to address our listeners and viewers really quickly, when Joan said that I had brought this up, what she's referring to is I usually send guests a list of questions before our interview. And one of the questions was, in today's political climate, there are so many people not sticking together. Relationships are breaking up, as Joan just said. Friendships, even families are becoming fractured. So many relationships are disintegrating in the political climate.

And so I guess my next question for you then is, what about the people who feel like, even though these other people have a different perspective, even if they're on the opposite political spectrum, that perspective is hateful to them or abusive to them? How do we come back from that?

Joan Childs:

Well, that's a very good question and a very tough one to answer. I think that people have to expand or stretch their emotional capacity. It depends how much they, you have to look at the other things in the relationship. If the other parts of the relationship are healthy and loving and caring, that's in my relationship it is.

It's just, I mean, there's just too much to give up for, and to let one person in the world be powerful enough to destroy my relationship. Because in four years, that person won't be here. So, you know, I have to think about what's more important to me, my relationship or allowing a political difference, break it up. And there's no question about that. I have more than I could possibly want in being connected to somebody who's a good person, who's a caring person, a loving person, loves my family. And we spend so much quality time together. Why would I let one situation have enough power to destroy that? I'd have to be crazy. It's just, it wouldn't be worth it. So you put up with the bad sometimes, or what you think is bad may not be bad to them, but maybe, you know, it's distasteful or uncomfortable.

And what we do is we never talk about that. It's kind of like not part of our, we have to kind of separate certain things outside. So rather than, you know, one person watching Fox television and the other person watching CNN, we don't impose our, you have to watch this, you've got to get the other. So we don't go there. It's not worth it. You have to decide how important is that when you look at the big picture. You're not going to let one situation, a political situation or a person or the people who are not on your side to destroy your relationship. That would be the saddest, the tragedy of tragedies, to allow something like that to interfere. You really have to kind of like really be very strong, both people, and not want to hurt each other. So we don't make that an issue.

We try not to talk about it. And it's hard today because even if I don't turn on CNN any longer, which I don't, or any bias, yes. Kind of media. It's really hard because you can see it on the internet. You know, you can't get away from what's going on in the world because of technology today, even if you don't watch television. And, you know, in my situation, being a therapist, I hear it from my clients. So I can't really get away from it. I just have to keep myself steady.

This is a gauntlet that we're walking through. And right now, we are in the eye of the needle. So it's how healthy are we to be able to keep forging ahead, putting aside our differences that don't really matter in our relationship. And I know people that are listening are saying, but it does matter. But if you make it matter, it will matter. If you can think of the positive things that you have that outweigh the negative because no relationship is perfect, like I said. So there are things that you may not like about the other person's beliefs or the other person. We're not even the same religion, my partner and I, but that's never been an issue, ever. He goes to church on Sundays, and I don't practice my religion as much as he practices his, but basically the values in his religion are identical to the ones that are in my religion. So we don't have that difference. This thing happened to be very unique, this political situation. It doesn't come across in any other part of our relationship. So why would I give it that kind of power to let it destroy what's so wonderful? I couldn't. I would be crazy to do that.

Now, if it's more than that in a relationship, if it's the political difference of sides, and there's things that go with the values that are completely different or the principles of or the belief systems, then you've got a real problem. Then you've got more than just different political ideology.

So it takes that kind of distinction to be able to make it.

Brandi Fleck:

Yeah, that's a really good point. Because I just, as you were talking, I kept wondering, well, what happens…So like, you don't have to, the political climate doesn't have to impact your relationship because you have similar values. But what if we reach a point where say somebody needs, they're going to get thrown into an immigration jail and they're your friend or they're your sister and you want to hide them in your house because you think that's the right thing to do, but your partner thinks it's wrong because they're breaking the law, then what? That seems like such a difference in values.

Joan Childs:

Yes, it does. If it interferes with the quality of your relationship to that point, then the relationship's in trouble. Because if you're not lined up all the way across, you know, with your values and your principles and your beliefs, you're doing to others as others would do unto you kind of stuff, then you've got trouble. There's no question. And that's why some of these couples and friendships are breaking up, because they cannot really embrace that the other person has a different opinion or a different way of looking at something. In a mature relationship, a healthy relationship…

You have to really decide, is it more pleasure or more pain? If there's more pleasure, you stick it out. If there's more pain, you get out of it.

And that's where some couples have to break up, whether it's politics or anything else. You know, somebody's married to somebody or living with someone that's an active alcoholic. Is there more pleasure in that or is there more pain? If that person doesn't want to affect change and becomes clean and sober, some people can live with it. I've had couples say, I'll accept it. One side of the couple would say he's only dangerous or aggressive when he's drinking. I couldn't live with that. But many people do. They just go through all their lives never really making any changes. But that's their destiny based on their choice. But when you come from a dysfunctional family, when your wounds and your traumas are not really resolved, you're going to be like that you're going to put up with something that maybe I wouldn't put up or you wouldn't put up with and because you're there it's interfering with the quality of my life and I want a quality of life and I don't want anyone to interfere with it again it's pleasure pain human beings again to your point what are human beings we tend to go for pleasure.

And go away from pain yeah that's pretty good you know we try not to not to live in pain and i'm talking about emotional pain as well as physical pain because eventually what happens is that we know that 80 of all disease is stress related because the cancer is in our bodies anyway and all we need to do is have enough stress to have it expressed and you get physically ill from emotional pain because the body and the mind and the spirit are one we are not separate so if you live in a situation where you can't have your feelings or you can't be who you are and you're living under abuse or abandonment issues or neglect on any level, eventually you're going to get sick.

Because we don't separate the body, the mind, and the spirit. If you're going to make the decision to live in an abusive relationship, you're going to have to find ways to develop spirituality. So that's why they have these wonderful programs, because people who are living with drug addiction, who are married to people who are living with drug addiction or alcoholism, they may not be able to change, they can't change their partner's behavior, but they can do things to help them. So it's by going to a 12-step program like Al-Anon, where they get the support. So there are ways to navigate that some people can leverage, other people can't, a mother of five children. and I had five teenagers at one time and I was a single parent.

And I got divorced with five kids under the age of eight because I couldn't live with someone that was an addict. And he wasn't a drunk or he wasn't a drug addict.

He was a gambler and gambling is an addiction and it interfered with the quality of my life. We put us all in danger. And so I, everybody thought I was crazy. We were going with five children and I didn't know where it was going. I just knew I had to get out of what I was in and I would figure it out once I got out. But it was not easy. Let me tell you, it had a collateral damage to not only me, but to all the children that turned out to be okay. But while we were going through it, it was suffering for all of us. But I couldn't live with that kind of behavior any longer because of the nefarious things he had to do to support his habit and put us in danger. So I made a decision. I was 35 years old. And my parents didn't talk to me for nine months because they thought I was crazy. But, you know, you just have to do what you feel that you have to do. And some people will stay in something like that for the rest of their lives and they have the right to do that if that's what they want I believe in the right of self-determination I would I don't give advice but I point out certain things and then you make the choice is this something you want to live with for the rest of your life or is this something that you want to change about the rest of your life. It's up to you. I can't make that happen.

So during therapy, whether it's couples, and I will not see a couple where one person is an addict, particularly in a drug or alcohol addiction. Because again, I'm not talking to the person. I'm talking to the addict. That has to go first. They have to be in treatment or an AA, or they have to be clean and sober for at least three months before I'll see them.

Then there's no guarantee that they won't have any relapse because many people do. Part of recovery is relapsing until you bat them out. And that's what they usually wait for. So there's so many mitigating circumstances to answer your question. There's no real definite, you know, there's just, you just have the plethora of who you are and what you want. And are you willing to make, do some suffering to get out of the suffering? Because a codependent woman who's married to a man that's a narcissist, she has a lot of difficulty in breaking that relationship up. But they can, and they do. And they move on. And they didn't even realize they were in it while they were in it. You have to get out of something to see the way it was. Sometimes you don't realize it because you're so used to it. It's normal for them until they realize when they get out of it. Oh, my God, what took me so long. Yeah.

Hate is a Loaded Word in 2025

Brandi Fleck:

Maybe this will sum everything up. I'm not quite sure.

But where is the line between love and hate?

Joan Childs:

Well, I'm so glad you asked that question because, you know, when you have this in my book, by the way, Do You Hate the One You Love? Strategies for Healing and Saving Your Relationship. In this climate that we're talking about, this political climate, the word hate has become a very nasty word.

Very nasty because of all of the hate crimes. But in our vernacular, hate is a very common word. You know, I hate driving in traffic. I hate being in an airplane when there's a lot of turbulence. I hate the way my hair looks today. You know, I hate oysters. You can't change that word because it has meaning. Sometimes you can even hate your parents, you can hate your kids, and it's not that you're actually hating them, you're hating their behavior. So I make that distinction in there, that the word hate is part of the human condition. It's an intense dislike for something. So when you say, I hate my husband because he never gives me the time of day, we can't talk, we can't communicate, that's understandable. But what happened, the reason I wrote this book is because over my 47 years while I was doing therapy, I heard women say, I hate him. I hate him. I can't stand him. He's such a jerk. He's an asshole. It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would say, well, why are you with someone that you hate? And they would always answer because I love him. When he's not acting like a jerk or an asshole. So then I said, didn't you hate the man you love? Yeah. Well, I did that book. I hate the man I love, but it came out during COVID. So I couldn't get it. I couldn't get it into bookstores because nobody was doing it. So I rewrote it. This is a revision. It has some changes that have updated. I made the clarification of the word hate.

And we say it every day in our everyday lives. I know I hate peanut butter, which I don't. I love peanut butter, but there's a very strong, it's part of the human condition to have hate love. It goes all the way back. I mean, centuries back. It's just part of being human. Again, when you said, what makes you human? You can say you can love something and hate something. But the interesting thing is, and I want to make this before we end, in all those 47 years, I never once heard a man say, I hate her. I've heard a woman say it many times. So I don't know if it's a gender thing. I'm not quite sure. But I've never once, I've heard him say she spends too much money. She doesn't pay attention to the household. And I don't like the way she all calls Amazon every day when I come home. There's always a package there. But I've never heard the word hate come out of a man's mouth. It's interesting. I want to share that with your audience. That is kudos.

That's why I took the word man. I was called I hate the man I love. That's why I took it out, because I never heard a man say I hate her, especially when they come to therapy. Maybe they say it at home, but they never say it in therapy.

It's Okay to Ask for Help

Brandi Fleck:

Gotcha. Well, Joan, is there anything that I have not asked you here today that you think is important to share?

Joan Childs:

Well, only that, you know, if you are in a relationship that has more pleasure than pain, and then suddenly things you realize that you are having problems with communication is really the key to understanding. And unfortunately, we don't have people who don't know how to communicate. There is sometimes a dynamic where one person is loud and a boisterous thing, the other one is passive like a turtle and pulls in. So I would really strongly recommend that if you're in a relationship that has more good than bad, get help. There are so many counselors out there that work on this. And try to go to a counselor that is mature, that is a little bit older, that has life experiences.

Because so many young ones coming out of school really don't know much more than you do. And life experience is really like a PhD when you've been out this long. I'm not saying that people in their 30s or 40s can't be helpful, but you can at least try, go out. And if you don't feel like you're getting better, try somebody else until you find someone that you can connect with, that you have the brain resident, the brain bitch. You feel that there is a connection with that person, that therapist, and that they really get you. And sometimes it takes several to go to, to really get that connection. There has to be a resonance between them that you can relate to they're relatable they make you feel that you matter because everybody needs to feel that they matter everyone because some of these people that come to counseling with me never felt that they mattered they never came from what we call a secure attachment so they repeat that pattern when they choose people unconsciously to give them the biggest nightmare of their lives to help them work through their past. But they fire them before they get them, the ones they hired to do it. They never get the resolution.

So go to get help. That's out there. And it's not that expensive anymore than it used to be. They have a lot of people, a lot of companies like BetterHelp. And I don't know them all, but it's important to try to find out who you are, why you are the way you are. I just wrote a blog, Why We Are The Way We Are.

Anyone that wants to read my blogs about about 500 they're on my website so I invite you to look at them.

Brandi Fleck:

That's fantastic and that'll be in the show notes and uh Joan can you go ahead and tell people where they can find your blog your work uh website all of those things.

Joan Childs:

Well, I am in South Florida, and you can find all my blogs on my website, which is joanechilds.com. Www. You don't even have to use the Ws anymore. Just put in joanechilds.com, and that's where you'll find a lot of my blogs. I must have over 500 blogs in there right now. I'm thinking of making a book out of my blogs. So it is. And I am in South Florida in Hollywood. Would welcome you to email me. My email is joanechilds at gmail.com. There's an E between Joan and Childs. So joanechilds at gmail.com. And I guess that's it. Is there anything else that I'm missing?

Brandi Fleck:

No, I think that's everything. And I've really enjoyed our conversation today. And just thank you so much for coming on the show and for the work that you've done in the world.

Joan Childs:

Well, it's my pleasure and thank you for having me.