Episode 234: An End To Arguing with Linda and Charlie Bloom
In this Winey Palooza episode, host Rebecca Greene interviews longtime marriage counselors Linda Bloom (LCSW) and Charlie Bloom (MSW), who celebrate 50 years of marriage and discuss their new book An End to Arguing: 101 Valuable Lessons for All Relationships. The conversation weaves together personal back‑stories—Linda’s upbringing in a dysfunctional family and Charlie’s accidental entry into counseling—followed by how they merged their professional lives into the Bloomwork practice. The Blooms outline the central premise of their book: ending unhealthy arguing, not all disagreement, by moving from adversarial to appreciative stances. They share concrete relational tools such as the “pause” (a brief, intentional timeout), committed listening (full‑body, meditative attention), talking meditation, checking‑in rituals, and step‑by‑step trust‑repair processes (acknowledge breach, allocate time, clarify intentions, aim for win‑win). They address common pitfalls like conflict‑avoidant partners, gendered communication triggers (“We need to talk”), and the importance of honoring differences. Throughout, they sprinkle anecdotes from their 50‑year marriage, parenting experiences, and teaching practice, and they promote their resources (website, books, videos, workshops). The episode ends with concise marital wisdom: don’t give up, respect differences, and treat relationship maintenance like daily brushing of teeth.
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Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, and I am so excited because I have Linda and Charlie Bloom here with me today. Um, welcome Linda and Charlie. Thank you. I'm so happy to have you both. And Linda is an LCSW, Charlie is an MSW, and they have been married Since 1972, they just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, which is amazing to me. They are trained as psychotherapists and relationship counselors. They have worked with individuals, couples, groups, and organizations since 1975 and have lectured and taught at learning institutes throughout the USA and internationally. They have authored 5 books. I just told them I need to read all of their books, so we will talk about, we will talk about their books. Their latest one is An End to Arguing: 101 Valuable Lessons for All Relationships. They are founders and co-directors of Bloomwork, based in Santa Cruz, California. And as I told Linda before Charlie joined us, I am so jealous that they are in California because I am in snowy Buffalo. So, so Snowy Buffalo is going to talk to Sunny California this morning, and we are going to jump in because I have so many questions for them. Let's start with, how did you end up becoming psychotherapists and working together? I would love to know.
Well, as many people in the field, I came from a family that had a lot of dysfunction. And so it really was motivating to me to learn how to do it better. And there was a lot of fighting in my household the whole time I was growing up. There was a lot of judgment and criticism and threats and ultimatums and silent periods and painful experiences. And I knew that there were families that did it better than that. And so I was motivated to learn for myself. And because I wanted to save other people some trouble, I really wanted to dedicate my life. And it's my mission as I learn things to pass them on.
That's wonderful. What about you, Charlie? What inspired you?
Well, uh, it, it was really the last thing in the world that I ever imagined I would end up doing, uh, particularly, uh, working with individuals and couples, helping them to learn about relationships. I mean, it just seems so ironic that, uh, that would ever be anything on my plate. And it didn't get on my plate at all until, um, I was in graduate school in literature, and a friend of mine, uh, had been working in a, in a counseling center for drop-in kids. Who were having drug problems. And he had to leave the job because he moved to Colorado. And he suggested that I apply for the job. At the time, I was working as a cab driver to put my way through graduate school. So it's not like I was wedded to that job. Although I didn't have any— I said to him, well, how could I? I can't do that. I never even took a psychology course in my life. He said, no, you'll be fine. You know, they just need somebody who can relate to the kids. So the bottom line was I applied for it. They hired me. And I found that, oh, this is cool. This is good. I can do this. And I like this. I like working with these kids. And, um, so I quit graduate school and worked there full-time for a couple years, and then I went back to graduate school and got an MSW and, um, started working in a clinic after I got my degree. And that's how I got into the work. And, um, uh, Never looked back. You know, it was, uh, it was really a finding, like, oh, there is something that— there's a place where I belong, and it's not where I thought it was, and this is it. You know, that feeling that, oh, this is what I've been wanting to do but didn't think I could.
It's fascinating to me to find out how people landed in this field. It's really fascinating. Now, now take it a step further. How did you two end up working together?
Well, I was doing psychotherapy and Charlie did psychotherapy for a while and then he started to teach large numbers of seminars. He worked for a company that had him flying all over the country and teaching also in Canada, teaching large group seminars, you know, with 70 students in them. And so this was a difficult and demanding time with his being on the road so much to be teaching and furthering his career. Well, our 3 kids were pretty small.
Oh boy.
And I got stuck in the position of being, you know, the stay-at-home mom. And I wanted to express that part of myself that was the professional woman. He finally, after 5 years, resigned from the corporate world and we started our own business. And during the time that he had been a corporate guy, we had written a course for the organization that he was working for, and we got to teach it a few times. And so that was the beginning of our offering seminars that were designed to enhance communication and relationships for couples. And so we started, each of us, doing counseling again and teaching. And he had all kind of connections from when he was in the corporate world, so we would fly to to New York and Washington, D.C. and Boston and L.A. And there was a very exciting time when we were teaching a lot, and we had friends around the country that would put the classes together for us.
Well, God bless you for dealing with him traveling, because let me tell you, COVID took it away from my husband, and he mentioned it the other day, and I was like, no, don't go back to any traveling, because we have 3 children, and you know what it's like to manage 3 children. So I don't miss travel. Do not miss it. Now, you're managing working together and being husband and wife, and, um, sometimes my husband and I work together, and I know it can be tricky. So how do you two manage the two different roles?
Very carefully. I don't know about you and your husband, but Linda and I, um, are very different especially Linda. Um, and, um, so we have a lot of, um, differences in, uh, our styles of work, in the way we process information, in the way we get the differences. And, um, you know, we both, for, for quite a few years, were very convinced that we were each Right. I don't know if you ever had that experience with anybody, but yeah, we had a very— each one of us had a very strong case of self-righteousness. And that's actually one of the motivators for us writing this book is that over the years, we did eventually learn how to hold those differences and not only tolerate them in each other and accept them in each other, but actually learn to appreciate them.
Yes.
And when you can begin to move from a place of judgment and reactivity, um, to the other person's different style to one of appreciation, it totally transforms the relationship. That's not necessarily easy to do, but it's definitely possible. Um, and when, you know, as we were able to do that, we really did stop arguing because it no longer became the focus of, uh, or the intention of our perspective to gain dominance in terms of how things are going to be handled. But we brought a whole different attitude of how can we make this work so that we both feel some, at least somewhat satisfied with the outcome, rather than looking at it in terms of one of us is going to win and one of us going to lose, and it ain't going to be me. So we put together a list of some of the principles of the process of getting from being adversaries to being partners. And our book has 101 chapters in it in which we talk about some of the challenges in that process and some of the practices that can help you to deal with them effectively. And it works. And so we've really been delighted so far with the response to the book because people are saying, hey, you know, when we first told them about— our friends about the book, the title, An End to Arguing, the response almost without exception was, is that even possible?
That's what I was going to say. Yeah.
Yeah, because a lot of people don't believe it is. So the first step in the process is to trust, to take the risk of trusting that maybe it is possible. Maybe that's not a ridiculous, absurd expectation that we could actually get to a point where we didn't get into these horrible arguments that take us spiraling down the rabbit hole.
Can you, can you show us this beautiful new book?
Yes, we're really proud of it.
Oh, I love the COVID An End to Arguing. And I want to ask you a question as we're talking about arguing.
Is there—
I guess I was just puzzled. I love that I'm puzzled by the title because it's going to grab people, like, is this possible? So my question is, are we ending unhealthy arguing, or are we just ending arguing?
We're ending the part of it that goes over the line to when it's painful, because you can have a very animated, passionate discussion where you, you express yourself, you listen respectfully for the other person to respect themselves. With the intention of learning and understanding each other, maybe not agreeing, but you show that much respect.
Mm-hmm.
Where it goes over the line from an impassioned discussion to an argument is when you're intending to change them, change their behavior, change their attitude, change their point of view. And that's where it goes from respectful to disrespectful. So that's what we're trying to attune people to, to stay on the right side of the line. Because of course, we're going to have differences. We believe that opposites attract. We, when we teach our classes, we say compliments attract. And some very deep, wise part of ourselves has drawn this person into our life because they have strengths that we don't have, and we have strengths they don't have. And it's that drive for mastery to become whole that has us pair up with people who are so different than we are. So the difference Differences are always going to be there, but the conflict and arguments does not have to be there if we are so mindful, self-disciplined, the process to learn how to stay on the right side of the line.
Yes, yes. If I could only just pause when I start to see red, just pause and don't say it. You know, and it's interesting because I respect and love and admire him, and he doesn't deserve some of the things that I say, and I need to be mindful of that, right? It's the mindfulness. That's what it is. It's like we lose ourselves in the arguments and all rationale goes out the window.
I'm glad that you mentioned those two things about pausing and mindfulness. We address those two issues quite a bit in the book because they're crucial. The pause is so powerful, and yet it only takes a moment. It's not like we have to take a 2-hour timeout. It just means, whoa, just take a moment here and announce it. To your partner. For example, I need to just— you got to give me a second here. I need to just take a breath and kind of regroup here because I'm really triggered right now, or I don't want to say something that I'm going to regret afterwards. It's such a simple, quick tool And it's so effective, but we don't exercise it enough. And until we really become more practiced at it, we're going to blurt things out without pausing. After a while, we can catch ourselves before we do it. But I've got to warn people, look, you're going to say things that you regret even though you don't want to, because sometimes Like Marion Woodman says, the poison toads just jump out uninvited. They come out. So the other thing that we talk about in the book that's really important is fortunately there are effective ways of repairing the harm that you feel you may have done by saying something that's unskillful or unkind and making an effective apology. Recognizing, acknowledging what you've done can, can actually not only repair the, the damage that may have occurred, but can actually bring a deeper level of trust into the relationship. When you cop to it, when you acknowledge that you've done something and you apologize for it and the other person accepts it, it actually can make the relationship more solid when that happens.
That is so wonderful to share with people because I think that even with tons of practice, which trust me, I'm over here practicing, even with a ton of practice, sometimes I slip up. So it's nice to know that when we slip up, we can still repair.
We all do. We all slip up once in a while. But as you practice, the, the slip-ups occur less frequently and you get out of them much more quickly.
Mm-hmm. Well, and you mentioned something earlier that has been huge for me, I call us yin and yang, and I think you're absolutely right. I think we find our opposites who complement each other. So it used to frustrate me a lot, and now I see that I need him and I need his differences. And I think that that appreciation has changed us a lot over the years. So, I mean, you made an excellent point. And You know, I'm thinking of my friend right now as we're talking, and you have a great question that, um, you had actually sent to me about when one person isn't willing to argue. And I'm thinking of this, this friend who gets so frustrated with her husband because he won't even engage and argue with her. Um, can you give us some advice on that situation?
Well, We sometimes hear from people, I don't know what to do. I'm trying to engage him or I'm trying to engage her. It's more often a him. Stonewalls me. And there's a chapter about this in the book. Actually, we have a couple different chapters that address this issue. Appealing to the person's enlightened self-interest. Because we all want to be happy. And if we can bring it to them in a very gentle, soft way, not a reprimand, not a demand. Do you know, people are very sensitive about being controlled. And if we can invite them in the discussion, and we have a chapter about sometimes you have to have a conversation pre-conversation. You have to set the scene. Do you know? And sometimes if you just say, I have something on my mind, I have something on my heart. All I want you to do is listen. Would you just show me the courtesy of listening? Do you know? Sometimes you can appeal to them. They can do that much. And then if you can go a little farther and say, if you would tell me how you feel about what I've just offered to you. Please be honest with me. Show me the courtesy of at least telling me what you're experiencing. If I'm saying something that rubs you wrong, I need your feedback to know that. If I'm doing something that's off-putting or upsetting to you, I don't mean to be critical. Now we have to hold up our end here and make sure the way we're speaking to them isn't critical and judgmental and demanding and commanding. And when there is a little opening there to say, this isn't just for me, this is for you too. Because I think our whole atmosphere of the house is going to be very relaxed, a little bit more fun. It's got— the kids are going to pick it up because they're just little tuning forks. The whole well-being. You know, there's not going to be these chilly standoffs. The sex is going to be more frequent and better. There's a lot in it for us.
There's payoffs.
Yes, that's appealing to their enlightened self-interest. Yeah, they may think about it a little differently instead of being conflict-phobic. Do you know that they may see that there is a lot to be gained if they stretch a little bit and try to Converse. And I always tell people if they're with somebody who's conflict avoidant and anger phobic, little gains, little incremental gains add up over time. Have a limited goal and be very grateful for if you make a bit of headway, then you could make a bit more and a bit more.
That is such amazing advice. I loved everything that you said. And I often find, and I don't wanna stereotype 'cause sometimes it goes the other way. But I often find that women come at the man and the man is like, you know, putting his hands up like, what? What? Oh my God, I'm scared. So I think that we have to take responsibility and be gentle in our communication, you know? Yeah.
You should tell her what was striking fear into your heart. You realize that it was a lot, a lot of men with the same fear.
Yeah, one of the things that can make it more difficult for a man to— a person, but I'll just speak as a member of the male gender— to be open and receptive to the idea of having the talk is by the way in which that need or desire is introduced by the partner. And I like to joke, but it's not just a joke, that the 4 most terrifying words that a man can hear is, "We need to talk." That is not a good way to introduce the subject.
And I didn't stop realizing that I was scaring him because he didn't give me feedback. That, that how off-putting that was. As soon as he brought it to my attention, I found a different way to introduce the topic.
For anybody who's listening to this or watching this, um, who hasn't had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of that message, um, I want to tell you what it feels like. Uh, as soon as you hear those words, and it generally comes from a place of frustration and disappointment and maybe even anger from the other person who has been stuffing their feelings for a long time. What it feels like is, it feels like an accusation. You have really done something wrong. You've really screwed up, and I'm here to tell you what it is, and I am not happy about it, and you're gonna hear about it right now. Well, that's not exactly a compelling invitation.
Oh my gosh, I'm so, I'm so glad that you're bringing this up because, you know, you're, you're right. You're— I've never— it's, it's usually me who says it, and I'm sure my husband is very happy that you're telling me that. Okay, that's great. That's good to know. I'm making a mental note. I will not say we need to talk. Good.
So what will you say?
Do you, do you have a minute? Oh, good.
Very good.
Very good.
That's a great way to begin. And then what?
Well, because sometimes he's busy and sometimes he looks busy and I don't want to interrupt him. Do you have a minute? I have something that I would love to discuss.
Yes.
Or I love what Linda said. I have something on my heart that I would love to talk to you about. I love that line. I'm going to save that line. I really don't think I tend to say that too often, that we need to talk. And it's so funny, as I'm talking to you, I'm thinking about how busy he tends to look, and it's like I try to like be like, um, do you have time? When do you have time?
Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, that's fine. That's great.
Okay, so, um, I would love to know what committed listening is.
This is listening with your whole being. You don't have the TV on, you don't have the radio on, you don't have any screens open, you don't check your email, you, you're really showing up. You probably look in their eyes. The whole world has to stop. You listen with your pores open. Do you know that you really are hanging on their every word? And when we work with couples, we find this all the time, that they're doing other things while they're talking and they're not really fully present. They may be mentally preoccupied and they may be multitasking, you know, emptying the dishwasher or cooking or doing dishes and folding laundry. And some of these issues are so important, you know, they're essential to the well-being of the relationship, and they just need that kind of committed listening where you're listening with your whole being. You're not just listening to the words, you're listening to the tone of voice, you're watching their facial expression, you're watching their body language. You're watching your own experience and response to them. And we have a spiritual teacher here in the Bay Area named Sylvia Borstein. I will be grateful all my days where she, she gave me a term for it. And she said, you know, that this is relationship is spiritual practice. Listening. This is meditative.
Tolm.
Talking meditation is you slow down the speed with which you're interacting and you deliver your message and pause. And they get to take it in and be with it and feel into it before they give you their message back. And when you have that depth in the communication, there is an understanding and a bond. That gets so much stronger.
Well, and I'm even thinking about my children as you're talking because they'll say to me, you're always busy, you're always busy. And, and that needs to be an indicator to me that they're looking for my eye contact, they're looking for me to listen to them. I mean, this applies— I think this applies to my kids too, what you're talking about.
Yeah, it was with all important people in our life. And not to underestimate the healing power of touch. Yeah. When we're holding hands and looking to each other's eyes, or do you know when we're seated on the same side of the table and the issue is over there and we're on the same team, do you know, united, and we're going to put our minds together to see how to deal with this difficult issue. So the kids will be profound teachers to you about how to practice committed listening, and you'll get really good at it.
Yep. I'm going to teach them all that word. We can let each other know that we need committed listening.
When they tell you that you're always so busy, There's an implicit embedded desire and request in that. Do you hear what it is?
Yes, yes, I want your time, I want your attention.
That's right, that's right. And, and that's so beautiful that they are still— they haven't, they haven't given up on you. That's the good news. They're still wanting you to know that they need you and that they want you, and that's a gift they're giving you. So the proper response to receiving a gift is to say thank you. You can say thank you instead of, you know, like some people, they would— they get that feedback, they get defensive, you know, and say, well, you know, I have all this other stuff and everything. No, the first thing to say before you say anything is thank you, and, and to really mean it, because they are giving you a gift. And you know what happens with the, the people who don't ever get to that point? The kids stop giving the gift, and that's really sad. Yeah, it's really hard to get that trust back again. So you don't want to, you don't want to lose that. You want to Thank you for letting me know that. And, you know, uh, I, I wanna, you know, I wanna give you, uh, that time right now. Or, I wish I could give it to you right now, but I can't because of this. But here's when I wanna give it to you. I wanna, I wanna give it to you like in 2 hours, or I wanna give it to you after dinner, or whatever, whatever it is. As soon as you can. But it's a gift, and to— yeah, people feel so much more gratified to hear that you did hear them, you know, you responded to their desire.
We're grandparents now, so, you know, we have decades to look back over. I don't have very many regrets in my life, but I do have a regret that I didn't do more special days with the kids. I did some. And when I look back on my history of raising the kids, each one of those special days is so profoundly important to me. I only wish that I had done more of them. Yeah, I was so busy with my career and all the things that I thought I had to do. And looking at it from this vantage point, looking at it went by so fast. When you're in the midst of it, it don't feel like it's going that fast. But looking back on it and to have a whole day with just one of the kids, not together the whole pack, you know, but one of the kids that really allowed me to see more deeply about who they were, what they did, what they were doing, their favorite subjects in school, their favorite teachers, who their friends were and why, you know, and we, we had fun, we really enjoyed those days. So they were too precious to Too few.
Well, and it's interesting because even an hour with them alone is just so special. So I do need to do, I do need to do alone time with them more often and alone time with my husband too. I'm thinking sitting here, when's the last date that we have gone on? I'm embarrassed to say that to you.
I'm glad you brought that up because that's my other regret. In the midst of all of those 20 years of raising kids, we didn't have very many romantic getaways. And they were so soul nourishing when we did take them. And when I would go away for a weekend and we would catch up with each other, I had so much to say, and we would relax, we would nap, we would rest. We were so exhausted. But when I would come home, the kids would look so cute to me.
Yeah, it's so true. Well, and I want to tell you, I want to go back to what Charlie said. I'm going to remember that it's a gift, because what I want to say— I want you to know I do not say this— what I want to say is Who's going to do the dishes and the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning? Who's going to do it if I don't do it? So that's what I want to say to them when they say that I'm so busy, but I stop myself because they're more important than all of that stuff. But that's what I want to say.
Well, and you know, be open to the possibility. I don't know how old your kids are, but you know, it's never too— it's never too late. Too early to start giving them a little more responsibility, a little more. And, uh, you know, it should not all fall on one person to do all that stuff.
When our kids were 7, they each had a dish night and a cook night.
Oh, really?
Yeah, they're all good cooks.
So you had them cooking dinner?
Yes, and they tested and I would sit down at the table and they hadn't planned anything, told me to get the ingredients for a dish, and we would sit there and they were gonna see whether I was gonna be the good codependent mother and swoop in and save the day and go make something. And we would just sit there and they'd put a sandwich together or something. They'd have to scramble, but they got to the point where they took pride in, oh, it's my night to cook. I want you to get this ingredient and that ingredient because I'm planning to make this, that, and the other thing. They didn't wanna just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or, you know, a tuna fish sandwich. And so they tested me to see whether I was going to swoop in and do the dishes or swoop in and cook. But I was adamant about it. I was, I was a wuss about some other things, but there were a few things that I was really fierce about. So we had kind of a commune where everybody had to pitch in.
That's great. That is really great. Yes, the next step. Now that they're starting to cook is that now they need to do the dishes. That's the next step. Yes. So, um, let's go back to repairing. Now you say there are steps to repairing trust when it's broken. Can we talk about some of those steps that we can take?
Yeah, sure. Um, the first step is seems like the most obvious one, but it needs to be spoken aloud, which is to acknowledge that, hey, there's a breakdown in trust here. You know, however words we want to describe, we, we, you know, to acknowledge that there's some work that needs to be done to address a situation where there's been a disappointment, a letdown, a broken promise. A broken commitment, something. So just to acknowledge that aloud and to ourselves and to the other person. And then, you know, the next step after that is— and of course you do this when you've got, you know, at least more than 5 minutes to do it. You've got to have some time. This is what may come after, you know, the thing that you said earlier about, do you have time now? And if the answer is yes, okay, so this is something that I want to deal with here. Um, and then the next one is say, well, what's your intention? To, to, to, uh, ask the other person, so we have this phenomenon, this broken, uh, agreement. How do you want to handle it? What do you want to do? Do you want to do something? Because I certainly don't want to just sit here with this. This is, you know, this is a mess, and I want to clean it up. What's your intention? So for each person to specify what their intention is, and, and the intention, uh, that, that it's important that at least one of us has, uh, and that is that the outcome that we're intending to occur is one that enhances and benefits both of us, not just something that I'm going to get out of it. Um, and the other thing is that, um, you know, it's, it's got to be a, a win-win. It's got to be a situation where there's something in it for both of us to do this, and there's an acknowledgment of, uh, how this is an intolerable situation to continue to live with. And sooner we address it, the better. Um, and again, one of the reasons that we, we wrote the book is because when people don't want to, uh, when they want to, uh, avoid the arguments, that they, they may not have been very successful in doing that because they haven't developed the skills needed to effectively address differences, uh, you know, in a skillful way. And so it's, it's not a bad— sometimes it's a good idea just to, to, uh, put something on hold for the time being until you can address it with more confidence in your ability to work through it. So we want people to have some idea of what's it going to take on our part to be able to restore the level of trust that we want, we both want to have. If we don't know how to do that, if we don't know what's going to help and what's not going to help, it doesn't make sense to just do what we usually do because that's going to take us to the same place it always takes us to.
Yeah, and I want to add to what Charlie's saying. I'm totally with everything he's saying. But to do that first step, to acknowledge that the trust is broken down, is sometimes the hardest one. Because people feel guilty and ashamed if they did something that hurt the other person, do you know? And sometimes the person who's hurt doesn't want to bring it up because they don't want the person to feel guilty and ashamed. But that is an incredibly important step. But it's only the first step. And then to explore what it is that really is painful about what happened, broken agreement or whatever it was. It's often a broken agreement when the trust breaks down. But the apology and the forgiveness needs to be thorough, and the timing has to be right. Because sometimes the other person's so hurt and defended, you know, they're protecting themselves, they're not ready. To apologize yet. They're not ready to forgive yet. And so sometimes a little time has to go by, another conversation, a little bit more time goes by, another conversation. I think sometimes people get themselves all balled up because they think there's no point in even trying because we talked about this and it didn't go anywhere. Sometimes you have to let the things settle down a little bit so it's not so raw and tender. And then people think, well, I apologize, why isn't she over it now? But yeah, maybe need to say it a number of times and show with your behavior that you really are sorry, and that you learn something and that you're going to do it differently now. And you realize that all of these small agreements are important, not just the medium size and the big ones. They all count. If you say you're going to be home at 6 o'clock, that you're home, or else you call and you say, I'm so sorry, I'm caught in traffic, or I couldn't leave work when I thought I was going to, because each one of those little things add up and can compromise the trust. So they all need to be addressed. We talk a lot in the book about incompletions, that people let these little things go and they're incomplete, but they mount up. We've got to stay abreast of them by checking in regularly. To make sure that there's not things clogging up the channel between us.
Well, and I love that, you know, my mind goes to big things, and I love that you're bringing up that there's little things throughout the day that we're doing to build our trust all day. I mean, I think we forget that, that all the stuff is building up. And, um, I love the checking-in process because I feel like We check in on other things, work things. We don't necessarily check in on our marriage. How are things? How are things going? Anything we need to work on? We don't, we don't do that very often. I, I'm speaking, I think I'm speaking for most people when I say that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Um, I am so curious about this question, and I would love to know, what do you think the most underutilized practice is in most relationships?
I don't think people check in enough. That's one big one. They don't check in minimum of once a week. For years, I've been checking in every day, and we don't have any tolerance, zero tolerance for anything being incomplete. So we check in every day.
Wow.
The other one that's really critically important is the timeout. When you start getting overheated, give yourself a break. One of my kids said to me when I was small, when they were small and I was acting like a kind of bitchy, they said, I think kids ought to be able to send parents to their room.
He was bang on. Yes.
I was indulging in my irritability, and I needed a timeout myself. So I think it really needs to go both ways. Not that the kids necessarily send the parents to their room, but the parent sends themselves to their room to get themselves calmed down. So that the, the primitive part of the brain at the top of the brainstem, you know, the lizard brain that only knows fight, flight. Yeah, all that's working then. And when you calm down, maybe a few breaths is enough, you reengage neocortex, which is the most evolved part of our brain, which is the creative part, which sees lots of options. And when we have our neocortex working for us, we can remember taking responsibility and enlightened self-interest, you know, we have options here. And then you see all kinds of possibilities for healing and understanding.
The thing about timeouts is that, you know, it's like what we were saying earlier. It doesn't take a long time to just disengage long enough to reflect on yourself, towards yourself, about taking that break, taking that break which interrupts the pattern of defensiveness and withdrawal and attack. And it's a very effective means, but it has to be used In a way, the way you use the time when you take the time out is rather than just kind of reinforce all your negative thinking about how wrong this person is and just keep steaming yourself up, you have to do the opposite. And you have to really look within yourself to see how is it that I can be when we re-engage here that will enable me to be present in a way that my partner will feel safe, that we won't be reinforcing this defensive cycle, and that we can be constructive in terms of our difference rather than— constructive rather than destructive. So how do you— how do we use that time? Some people, when they take the time out, they just steam themselves up more, and then they come back together again, and it's like they never—
I was just gonna say that.
Yeah, you got to use it. Yeah, intentionally, you know, purposefully, to, to be able to re-engage in a way that's going to be productive.
I love that you're pointing out that we need to take the time out, but we need to use the time out well. Yeah, I love that. That's really good. I want, I want to make you laugh and tell you that my 10-year-old was yelling, Mom, take a breath, your spiritual teacher.
Yeah, it's great.
And it's so funny because, you know, there's been times that I've been like, stay out of it, but it was really good advice. I needed to just Take a breath. It was really good.
Yeah, another opportunity to say thank you to your kids.
Yes, thank you.
We teach, we give a lot of examples because I'm a concrete thinker, so I, I love examples. So we, we exhibit in our class how we used to fight unskillfully, and they get to see all the unskillful things that we do. And I sometimes give the example of when he was a corporate guy and he was flying all over place. And he would come back from his trip. And I'd be exhausted from being on with the kids by myself all week. And I would have to, you know, sit with this meditative pause and hold him in my heart. Do you know, with a lot of appreciation and gratitude, he's a good man. He is a very good father when he's here. And I appreciate the beautiful qualities about this man. And yes, I am really angry and resentful that his career is soaring while I've had to put mine on hold, and I'm envious, but I will take responsibility for that. And he is a good man. He's just a little lost and confused right now while he's hell-bent on, you know, growing his career. And I just need to be a committed and devoted wife to him for him to play it out, and eventually he's going to finish and come back to us. But I had to do that with determination because there was a part of me that just wanted to rip his hair out by the roots. Do you know about the broken agreement that we're going to raise these kids together and support each other's careers? We, we wrote a book about that too. It's called That Which Doesn't Kill Us.
Great title.
We almost got divorced behind these separations over the years. We went to the pits of hell. And we paid attention and we got good help. We got good help. And one of the things that I learned to do was to sit in forgiveness meditation and hold him in my heart and see his beautiful qualities, do you know? And really have some tenderness and affection and appreciation for him when he came home exhausted from, you know, working his 80-hour work week. And so that the difficulty of missing him and being overtired with raising the kids so much by myself wasn't compounded by the ugly battles that we used to get when I was trying to make him quit his job and he was just determined he wasn't going to quit it.
So hard. Well, and you've had 50 years together.
Yeah.
So 50 years, can you, can you leave us with some of your best marital wisdom for us to last, all last 50 years too.
Don't give up.
Oh, I love that. I love that.
And respect the differences.
Go ahead.
Yeah, don't give up, which is not to say that all marriages, uh, can make it. That's what makes it hard not to give up sometimes, because it— there's no guarantee that doing this work is going to create the relationship that you want. Um, the chances of that happening are much, much greater if you do, but there's no guarantee. And we're the first to admit that there are some situations where couples, there's just too big a mismatch. And we don't consider it our, our job to make sure that couples stay together no matter what. We believe that we all need to have the right to choose and to feel that we have been chosen. And when you, when you don't feel that, that possibility is available to you, then it, it's very easy to question whether or not that person is with you because they really want to be or because they don't have any other choice. And to feel chosen by somebody because they want to be there creates a totally different experience than it does when the other person is there because Well, I swore that we're never going to divorce, and damn it, that's not going to happen. Oh boy, oh boy. Yeah, so, uh, yeah, hang in there. Don't, don't, don't give up. Um, and at the same time, and this seems like kind of an oxymoron, but at the same time, keep in mind that you are choosing this part and, um, uh, hang in there. Because most relationships, you know, they require more, more work than we think it should. And don't, don't assume that because your relationship does take work, um, that there's anything wrong with you or with them or with your relationship. It just means, hey, That's in the nature of the game, that it does take work. The good news is that the more you practice, the easier the work gets, and the maintenance of it is just like brushing your teeth. It's just, oh yeah, it's something that you do to make sure that it stays healthy. That's all. It's not like, oh boy, 'Now I have to brush my teeth again. I just did it yesterday.' And, you know, no, it's— you do it and, and it pays off. It's really worth it.
Well, it's— it feels like a privilege to me that I have gotten to talk to you and get all of this amazing wisdom today. And I have no doubt that you're going to help a lot of people who are going to listen to this. So can you tell everyone listening or watching where they can find you, where they can find your book.
If they can remember Linda Bloom, Charlie Bloom, or Bloomwork, that will take them to our website, which is www.bloomwork.com. Singular. Bloomworks takes you to a flower nursery. So when people go to our website, they'll see our 5 books. There are also 3 ebooks that are for free that they can download. We have a link to Psychology Today where we have more than 600 blogs. Yeah, we've gotten 10 million hits on our blogs on Psychology Today.
Wow.
And there are over 100 videos on our YouTube channel. So there's recommended readings, the best books on relationship. So if people want to come to our website, they will also see that we teach classes.
Yes.
And we do intensives where people fly in from out of state and spend a day or two with us to have a course just for them. Some people are very private and they don't want other people knowing their business in a class. We come to New England and we teach in Massachusetts and we also teach on the West Coast. And we're going to teach in Tennessee for the first time. In this summer. So if people wanted to do a workshop with us or Zoom with us, we do most of the counseling that we do these days by Zoom. So they can always find out about our books, our courses, and all the things that we have on our site.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. I really appreciate it.
Well, thank you for your wonderful questions.
It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you. This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving. Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.
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