Elections are temporary. Family is forever. Here's how to keep politics from driving you apart

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Our divided nation is dividing families. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family – even his wife – are appalled at his support of former President Trump, and Tim Walz’s brother, Jeff Walz, has declared that his brother’s progressive ideology is the reason he hasn’t talked to him in eight years.

The emotional loss of family and friends damages our mental health; the divisiveness among colleagues can poison the workplace.

This is not new. In the Civil War, it was not uncommon for a brother to fight his own brother. Our Founding Fathers often viciously disagreed. But they created institutional checks and balances to compensate for what they could not modify personally: our inability to hear opposing perspectives without becoming defensive.

With my background as a Ph.D. in political science who has also conducted couples’ communication workshops for the past 30 years, the search for a solution intrigued me.

TIM WALZ'S BROTHER IS '100% OPPOSED' TO DEMOCRAT VP NOMINEE'S POLITICS: 'DON’T AGREE'

I saw that historically speaking, when we heard criticism, we feared a potential enemy. Therefore, building defenses was functional for survival. But for love, it’s just dysfunctional.

To transform civil war to civil dialogue with loved ones and friends, we need to develop behaviors that alter our natural biological propensity for defensiveness.