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August 19, 2025 21 mins

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What does it really mean to marry someone with a "messy childhood"? After 34 years of marriage, we're pulling back the curtain on this deeply personal topic that touches so many relationships.

The conversation began with a social media post describing the qualities of women who emerge from difficult childhoods to become extraordinary wives and mothers—if they've healed. That last part is crucial. We explore what true healing looks like, why it matters so much in marriage, and the reality that this process often takes years, not months. In our case, significant healing took at least twelve years, with certain issues continuing to surface even later.

We tackle the uncomfortable truths about these relationships from both sides. For those who experienced trauma, there's the temptation to seek a rescuer rather than doing internal work. For their partners, there's the risk of developing a "hero complex" or underestimating the commitment required. We've seen marriages crumble when one partner realizes they aren't prepared for the healing journey ahead.

Trust becomes the bedrock of these relationships. Learning to believe your partner won't abandon you when difficult things surface creates space for unprecedented intimacy—not just physical, but emotional and spiritual. This trust allows for conversations most couples never have, deepening your connection in profound ways.

Whether you're in a relationship affected by past trauma or considering one, this episode offers honest insights about what it means to commit to the process. Because when those neatly packaged traumas resurface at the most inopportune moments—and they will—your commitment to walking together through the healing process makes all the difference.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Franks (00:00):
Hey there, this is Brad, and I'm with my wife,
Tiffany.
How are you, tiff?
Good, we are the authors of theHustle Flow podcast Coming to
you.
Today.
We're going to be talking aboutmarriage and messy childhoods,
and this is something we've beentalking about this week.
A little bit, and tell me wherethis came from.

Tiffany Franks (00:22):
I saw a post on Facebook about a messy childhood
and a girl that comes out of amessy childhood, how what kind
of wife she is, and it went onto describe what kind of wife
and mother she is coming from amessy childhood and it said you
know, basically, when you comefrom messy childhood and you

(00:43):
heal which is the key word, andwe'll probably circle back to
that a few times what kind ofmother you are.
And so then we, as we normallydo, we talk back and forth about
it and, as we normally do, wehave some disagreeing opinions
and some that are kind of thesame.
But I thought it wasinteresting because I mean, it's

(01:04):
you know, it's not something Ishy away from.
I brought a messy childhoodinto our marriage.

Brad Franks (01:11):
Yeah.

Tiffany Franks (01:12):
So some of that I definitely could identify with
what she said, and so we weretalking through some of it, and
the comments were interestingtoo, so we talked through some
of that.
So that's where it came from.

Brad Franks (01:23):
Okay, yeah, so the post you can.
You can look at it.
It's Heather Hurt and I don'tknow if she she's verified on
Facebook, so I imagine she postsseveral things, but her, her
post is more about marrying thegirl with a messy childhood and,
just like Tiff said that, whatkind of mother she can be, what
kind of wife she could be, etcetera, et cetera, if she's

(01:44):
healed.
And for us the comments wereprobably some of the most
interesting thing, becauseTiffany said I can't wait to go
to the comments.
She had her Michael Jacksonjacket on and she had the
popcorn and she went to thecomments.
And so tell me about some ofthose comments.

Tiffany Franks (02:00):
Yeah, and let me say this so, being somebody
that had a messy childhood, Iwould never want somebody to
have told you, man, you need to,you need to shy away.
It's kind of like when you'relooking at a house and some
houses need carpet and they needpaint, but some houses need to
be taken completely down to thestuds and they need a new roof

(02:23):
and they need a new septic, likeall those things.
So I would have never wantedsomebody to tell you, man, you
need to like that's, that'sgonna be a lot of work.
You need to go the other wayyeah but I can say that when
we've sat and talked to couples,when we're talking to couples

(02:43):
who are maybe in a relationshipwith somebody who's had a messy
childhood and they startspelling out everything, I'm
like, well, are you sure you'rereally up for all that work?
Because do you know, do youreally know how much?
You know, just like a house,like, do you know what that's
going to cost you?
Well, in a relationship, do youknow what that's going to cost?
Do you really know what?
That's what you're reallygetting into?

(03:05):
And so I know sometimes we wantto make sure and I think that
we know it's a lot of work andit's and it can, and there's so
much that's involved patienceand time and grace and all those
things.
And so I almost feel like alittle bit of a hypocrite.

(03:25):
Is that, would that?
Would that even be right, likeI?

Brad Franks (03:29):
mean, I wouldn't have wanted.

Tiffany Franks (03:31):
I wouldn't have wanted somebody to tell you you
need to stop and think about it,because I didn't want you to
think about it.
I just want you to hurry up andgive me a ring and let's get
married.
But I know now we've beenmarried 34, it was celebrated 34
years and we talk to couples.
I would want to tell people youknow, make sure that you
understand what's going on here.

Brad Franks (03:51):
But I don't know, and that's what we had this
discussion.
I don't know if I knew what Iwas signing up for you had no
clue.
And I say that and people aregoing to be like, well, that's
mean and it wasn't mean.
We were young.

Tiffany Franks (04:04):
well, that's mean, and it wasn't mean.
We were young too, yeah.

Brad Franks (04:05):
I was 18 and she was 16.
And I knew that she lookedreally good in that cat suit
that she wore and her body glovejumpsuit and she was pretty and
she was blonde and she wasfunny and she was quirky and she
was everything that I was notand everything that I desired

(04:29):
was not and everything that Idesired.
And so, while I knew, as webegan to date and talk and we
began to spend a lot of timetogether, I began to know that
maybe there were some issuesfrom the past with her family
and things that she she had toto the messy childhood part, but
I really didn't know what thatlooked like.

Tiffany Franks (04:42):
Right.

Brad Franks (04:42):
And we really just to be honest with you.
I mean, there are things thatare obvious, but we had even 10,
12 years into our marriage.
We had things creep into ourmarriage before as far as, like
the you know one instance inparticular.
She just got angry and I didn'tknow why and it was because,

(05:05):
you know, something had surfaced.
That was years ago.
And so we began to work throughthat and so it was not um, I
didn't understand.
And so these comments like youtalk about, uh, a lot of them
are from dudes and they're likeno, thank you.

Tiffany Franks (05:22):
Yeah.
And so I wonder, though, ifsome of those comments are
because maybe they did marrysomebody with a messy childhood,
and either one they were justcomplete jacktails and had no
patience, no grace, and didn'treally care, because if you
can't serve me, if you can't bea good spouse to me, now I'm not
interested, I don't want to putthe work in, and those people
probably won't work out wellwith anybody.

(05:43):
If that's their mentality.
Yeah, want to put the work in,and those people probably won't
work out well with anybody ifthat's their mentality.
Yeah.
But it also could be going backto that key word if they were
healed, and so I think that youknow coming, if you come from a
messy childhood, I think thehealing part is key, because
it's a constant journeysometimes, and if you're not

(06:04):
putting in the work and you'realways instead wanting to feel
sorry for yourself or wanting tobring the drama to everything
or not face hard issues, you'renot healing.

Brad Franks (06:16):
Yeah, do you think and it just occurred to me as
you were saying that though I'veseen it and I know you have too
that let's just say whetherit's a guy or girl?
We're talking about ladies,because this particular author
talks about healing from alady's standpoint the messy girl
that sometimes girls don't heal, that they're looking for the

(06:43):
knight in shining armor to comein and just take them out of a
bad situation.
And it's not that they maybedon't want to heal.
It's that they never took thetime to heal from trauma and
they go into a relationshipthinking this guy's going to
save me, he's going to take meout of mama's house and we're
going to go and build a familytogether and it's going to be

(07:03):
nice and neat, and I'm going tokeep everything put in a box
until it till one day he goesback there and thinks what's in
this box?
And then, all of a sudden, themonsters that's been hid for so
long comes out.

Tiffany Franks (07:17):
Yeah, I think that can happen.
And another thing I think couldalso happen in that situation
is that you think thatsomebody's just going to come in
and they're going to save youand you can leave all that.
You know, you trick yourselfinto thinking all that can be
left in the past, but then whenthe knight in shining armor
decides I don't really want tobe a knight anymore, I'm tired
of being a knight, I just wantto be a regular dude.

(07:39):
Well then, who's to say thenthose people, if they're not
healed and they were looking fora knight in shining armor, I
think that's a bad recipe forlooking for another knight in
shining armor yeah, I see whatyou're saying I see where you're
going, because when the newwears off, Well, I mean because
nobody can.
I mean somebody can try to propyou up and try to tell you all

(08:02):
the things and whatever, but Ithink any normal human would
will get worn out with thatafter a while.

Brad Franks (08:10):
It's not sustainable?

Tiffany Franks (08:12):
I don't think it is sustainable.

Brad Franks (08:13):
My buddy Roger used to say that you always have to
constantly pumping people up,like he would make this motion.
Like you're pumping an air tankor whatever, you're pumping
somebody up.

Tiffany Franks (08:23):
I don't think it's sustainable.
And I'll just be honest.
I think it's selfish of you ifyou're the damsel in distress.
I think it's selfish of you tonot be able to give back in a
way to where somebody is justhaving to give to you and pump
you up all the time.
So I think it's selfish to notdo the healing process if you're
in a marriage and you know thatit's things you need to deal

(08:46):
with so that you can be the bestspouse that you can be to your
person.
And I know we're talking.
This post was on the girl withthe messy childhood, and I know
boys have messy childhoods too,but that's not what we're
talking about today, but then itgoes on to talk about once
she's healed the things.
and I really I believe a lot ofthat.

(09:06):
I do believe that those peopledo become fierce protectors of
you, of the family.
I mean, you know, like you, youknow I'm a fierce protector,
that's right probably wayoverboard.
Um, I believe you know that shewill walk through.
One of the I think the commentswas that she'll walk through

(09:27):
flames because she's alreadydone it, like she's used to that
.
So she'll.
She'll stand in the fire foryou because she's already walked
through flames, and so Ibelieve some of that is true.
Right, the characteristics andattributes that a person can
possibly have who comes fromthat and then heals yeah.

Brad Franks (09:51):
I think the statement here it says, if you
can give her a safe love, she'llgo to war and face the storm
over and over to protect yourfamily and I believe that I've
seen that with you coming out ofmessiness and healing and it
took years.
Just just being honest.

Tiffany Franks (10:08):
And I'd say about 12 years.
It took at least 12, maybe more.

Brad Franks (10:11):
I mean from my perspective, we've been together
35 years and it's not that allthose years after 12 were bad,
but there were still elementsthat lagged behind that we were
continuing to work through untilyou came to a point in certain
certain things that that I had Ihad to work on because that was
just who I was.

(10:32):
Once you began to realize, hey,okay, he's here, he's safe, he's
not going anywhere, he's notrunning when I tell him this or
he's not going to run because ofthis, that you begin to let
down even more.
And the past several yearswe've had an intimacy that I'm
going to be honest with you.
I hate to make people jealous,but you should covet that kind

(10:54):
of intimacy because we've beenvery intimate, and I'm not
talking about sexually, I'mtalking about spiritually and
emotionally.
We've been wrong with eachother and we've shared things
with each other that mostcouples would never delve into.
They wouldn't even stick theirtoe in the pinky or their pinky
toe in the water of some of theconversations we've been able to
have.

(11:14):
But because we've worked throughsome messiness and it was not
easy, and you know, I thinkabout guys who meet girls who
have messy childhoods.
There is this thing called thehero complex, that If you can

(11:36):
find a damsel in distress andthat's the age-old thing that
guys want to find a damsel indistress and be the rescuer and
be the knight in shining armorand fight off the dragon or
whoever's got her put in a tower.
They can release her.
They beat on their chest likeKing Kong and they want to have
that hero complex and it makesthem feel good.
And listen, I will say thisthere's nothing wrong with

(12:00):
feeling good because you helpedyour spouse work through a messy
life, okay.
But when you become glib aboutit and you think that you are
the reason, the only reason thatthey are who they are, that
without them or without you thatthey wouldn't have made it,

(12:20):
then that turns really yucky andit becomes that hero complex
and instead of just being humbleand thinking man, I, I
unearthed a treasure and youknow I liked the Bible verse and
it talks about when a man findsa treasure in a field, he sells
everything he's got.
And it just hit me.

(12:41):
He sells everything he has andhe goes and buys the field
because of the treasure insidethe field.
And for 35 years I've soldeverything that I am to buy the
field because I know thetreasure that I have.
And so if you're not careful,guys, you can have a hero

(13:03):
complex and you can make it.
But it also comes back toladies who become doormats.

Tiffany Franks (13:11):
Yeah, and I want to go back to something you
said about conversations andtrust.
I think that's the first stepin these relationships is, you
know, for everybody it'sdifferent of believing that your
spouse is who they say they areand the things that they say to

(13:31):
you, that you believe them,because it takes time to not be
waiting for the other shoe todrop and or to be waiting for
them to show you who they reallyare or to be waiting on them to
run.
That's a big thing like, and Ithink some people even try to
act out a little bit in that.
I probably did some to see if Icould get you to run and so,

(13:53):
because then they could say see,I know, I knew, I knew this was
going to happen.

Brad Franks (13:56):
Right.

Tiffany Franks (13:56):
So I think that's one of the biggest
obstacles is trust and feelingsafe and being able to trust
your spouse.
And so then, going back to thedoormat, yeah, we saw one
comment which I threw up in mymouth a little bit, you know.
The lady tagged her husband andsaid thank you for giving me a
home.

Brad Franks (14:15):
Yeah, I just thought that was so gross.
Yeah, that makes me feel gross.

Tiffany Franks (14:20):
Yeah, I just thought that was so gross, yeah,
like that makes me feel gross,yeah, and that's.
You know I I'm thankful thatyou've been with me and you've
been patient with me, but I mean, I have to say I'm not thanking
you for giving me a home andI'm just so lucky that you gave
me a home.
Um, you know, I don't know, Idon't, don't, I don't, I don't

(14:41):
know what my life would, wouldbe like without you know, I
don't sit around and try toimagine it because it would be
real boring.
I mean, I get to stay out laterat night?

Brad Franks (14:51):
doubtful, but it would be boring.

Tiffany Franks (14:53):
It's doubtful but I mean that that's I can't.
I can't understand that.
You've never made me feel likeI need to thank you for having a
roof over my head.

Brad Franks (15:03):
But I don't view it that way and, in all fairness,
Neither of us treat each otherlike you're just so lucky.
Yeah, we don't do that.
Well, you are pretty lucky.
I'm kidding, but no, you'reright.
Like we're thankful.

Tiffany Franks (15:16):
Yeah, we're thankful.

Brad Franks (15:17):
Lucky and thankful are two different things, right,
and I don't know this lady whoposted that.
I don't know her husband, soyou know you.
You insinuate.
Well, that must be what theirrelationship is like, that that
might not necessarily be true,the commenter, you mean yeah,
the commenter, like she just maybe, still have some, some
things she's working through,some insecurities and some
things that maybe she's comingout of and just telling her

(15:38):
husband hey, I love you, thankyou for you, whatever.
But here's the thing like yuck,yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.
Grateful, yes, lucky no,because God favors you as well
as he favors anybody else and heloves you just like he loves
anybody else in a marriage.
And you know, god has a planfor you as much as he had a plan

(15:58):
for me.
If we would have never gottogether, you would have been
successful.
You would have absolutely beensuccessful.
You would have been the greatperson you are today, you would
have been just as beautiful asyou are today and you would
absolutely have the world inyour hand, just like you do
today.
God would have blessed you,just like he would have blessed
me.
However, we're grateful that wefound each other and we're able

(16:22):
to work through these messysituations?

Tiffany Franks (16:23):
Yeah, and I don't know about all that.
I might've done a little stinthere and there before I got to
where I was supposed to be, butyou know, I don't that, that I
didn't.

Brad Franks (16:31):
yeah, that's definitely possible Could have
been, you know.

Tiffany Franks (16:34):
So, going back to talking about people that are
, that are dating here's.
Here's one thing I do believeif you're in a relationship with
somebody, if you know thatyou're not committed to the
process, then I think you needto be honest about that if
you're not committed to theprocess of them healing, because
it might take a year and itmight take 10 and all you know,
in ours it was probably longerthan 10.
It um, you know, because we'veseen that.

(16:58):
I've seen people date somebodyand then they get married and
they want to be perfect nowwe're married and you've got to,
you should be fixed now, andthat's not the way it works.
I think they actually got a Idon't even think it was two
years, yeah and they weredivorced.
But we saw, we knew where shewas coming from and so we

(17:19):
weren't quite sure that thatthey were even ready for that
commitment or that he was readyfor that commitment.
But they did it anyway and hewas not.
He was not ready to be part ofthat process and to be patient
and give it some time.
And so I think you're not beingfair to your potential spouse If
you know you're not up for thatand you're not up for the

(17:39):
healing and you don't think thatyou're strong enough that your
ego can take it and your pridecan take it and that you love
them enough for the process.
And then I think if you'realready married, it's like a
physical sickness.
You know you're, you're in itnow.
So how can you support, how canyou help?
But with that you got to bewilling, that you got to be
willing to heal, you got to bewilling to do your part.

(18:01):
You got to be willing to lookin the mirror and be real honest
with the boxes that you stuckway to the back and hoped that
something would never pop outand rear its head and you got to
deal with stuff.

Brad Franks (18:13):
Yeah, and that's.
That's a good place to stop.
Right there.
I think you're right, you'vegot to be committed to the
process.
And I will finish with thisreal quick story.
A kid to me.
I was mentoring him and we weregood friends and he had broken
up with his girlfriend and shehad a messy childhood.
She was a messy person, niceperson, but just messy.

(18:36):
And so I had told him becauseat that time we'd probably been
married about 15 years and Itold him I said you've got to
understand what your girlfriendlooks like and what this could
be in your marriage.
And he got mad at me.
He said are you saying youdon't love your wife?
And I said no, that's not whatI'm saying.
He hung up on me, didn't talkto him for three weeks, but I

(19:01):
tried to explain to him thatthey're cute and they're funny.
But there's things back here,like you said, those boxes that
you don't know may creep up andyou don't know.
Here's the thing you don't know.
When they creep up, they cancome up at the most inopportune
times and you think, man, I hadthat so neatly packaged and
taped up.

Tiffany Franks (19:20):
That's the truth .

Brad Franks (19:21):
And, oh my gosh, here it is now and you got to
deal with it, and it can justpop up at the most inopportune
time.
So I do, like that word becommitted to the process.
You may not know what you'regetting into, and that's just
the truth.

Tiffany Franks (19:36):
Right.

Brad Franks (19:37):
But you need to know this when you make a
marriage commitment, it's forbetter and worse, richer and
poorer.
Sickness and health till deathdo us part and I'm committing to
the process, no matter whatthat looks like.
If you marry somebody who has amessy childhood, you need to
understand that there are goingto be things you will deal with.
It is not you're not going tohave happily ever after when you

(20:01):
say I do, because still thingscome up even years later.
So we just want to encourageyou.
Listen, people with messychildhoods are great people.
They're people who God loves.
And there's people who you canlove and I promise you we're
living proof 35 years right herethat God can do anything he
wants to do.
But it goes back to committingto the process and loving

(20:25):
somebody through all of it.
Any other words, that's it.
Hey, thank you so much forlistening.
There are two type of people,and one type is the kind that
talk the talk, and then there'sthe other, who walk the walk,
and Tiffany and I have alwaystried to be the people who walk
the walk.
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