Preparing to Blend - Ron Deal

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Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. If you're thinking about starting a blended family, don't miss today's Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. If somebody is just 30 or above, it's a quarter of all first marriage weddings are forming a blended family. People find themselves in stepfamilies for lots of reasons.

Obviously, what we want to do is try to help them get ready for that and experience it well. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, help for couples who are making the transition to becoming a stepfamily. Ron Deal is our guest. He is a step parenting Yoda, a fierce warrior for blended families. And Gary, this is going to be a really practical program because what Ron writes in the new book, Preparing to Blend, is kind of a blueprint for couples who are headed in the blended family direction. You know, Chris says, I read this book.

I had this thought. I wish every couple who is contemplating a blended family would read this book as a part of the process. You know, I think like if we do more preparation before we get married, then it's going to be easier.

Many blended families, they just jump into it. And the year down the road, they're struggling and then they start looking for help. Well, that's good. I'm glad they're looking for help. But to those who haven't yet made that decision or they're thinking seriously about it, this book is a great read for them.

Yes. Well, I have said it here before. He's one of my favorite people on the planet.

So let's welcome him back. The director of Family Life Blended, the author of a number of helpful books for step families. His name is Ron Deal. Go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. You'll see the featured resource today, Preparing to Blend, the Couples Guide to Becoming a Smart Step Family.

Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Ron Deal, welcome back to Building Relationships. We're glad to have you. Well, thank you, Gary.

It's always a pleasure to be with you and Chris and just appreciate the opportunity. Now, you have your finger on the pulse of blended families. Can you begin by talking about the effects of what we've been through in the last year and a half, year and a half, actually, and what it's done for blended families? Well, you know, I think in general, blended families are experiencing similar effects as other families and other couples around the country.

And it seems to be going one of two ways. For many people, the pandemic has been an opportunity. They're getting time together that they didn't have parents and children.

My wife's a teacher, and she would hear things, you know, a year ago when the pandemic started, she would hear things from her students like, hey, I got to ride my bike with my dad today. And, you know, hey, we're doing puzzles as a family, you know, things that are indicators of people are making an opportunity out of this. And I think that's enhancing some relationships in some unexpected ways for many families. At the same time, there is, there's a stress factor going on for all of us. And we're certainly getting tired of it. And I'm hearing that from people. And I think if there was stress already in a blended family home, for example, then this is exacerbating it in some ways.

Just, I mean, there's just a low-level grumpiness in my heart and life, Gary, you know, you know, we're just walking around going, man, when is this going to be over? And so it naturally already puts you on edge. And then if there's any stress or strain going on in your family relationships, boy, you're just a little quicker to react and negativity comes out. And so that's making things a little bit more challenging. So it seems to either be going in a positive way for some and not so positive for others.

Yeah, I'm sure that's true. Before we go further, let's just identify what we mean by the term blended family. Yeah, it's confusing.

Our language gives us away. We, there's so much complexity in step-family relationships that we don't even know exactly how to talk about them around the country. So we are talking about step-families. And that happens when at least one adult brings a child from a previous relationship to the new couple family marriage relationship. So at least one person brings a kid and that could be preceded by, you know, marriage and a divorce. It could be preceded by marriage and the death of a spouse, somebody being widowed. Many, many more circumstances these days, guys, are happening for blended families when nobody's been married before, but somebody had a child and now is bringing that child into a new relationship. We're talking about premarital education and preparation today.

Let me tell you a stat that's blowing me away, okay? 15% of first marriages in the United States today form a blended family. 15% of first marriages form a blended family.

And get this, if one of the two adults is over age 30 or above, and by the way, that's not a stretch. Like, if you're like me and you got married very young, you think, oh, everybody gets married young. Well, no, most first marriages today are taking place around age 26, 27, 28. If somebody is just a couple years older, 30 or above, the first marriage rate that forms a blended family jumps to 28%. It's a quarter of all first marriage weddings are forming a blended family. People find themselves in step families for lots of reasons, and obviously what we want to do is try to help them get ready for that and experience it well.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm sure that many of our listeners today fall in that category, so I'm excited about our conversation. Now, we know that there are many premarital resources out there for couples, but this one, this book that you've just written, is unique. So tell us what sets it apart.

Yeah, well, the answer is obvious. It's not just about becoming a couple. It is about becoming a family. You know, Gary, you and I wrote a book together, came out just a couple years ago, Building Love Together in Blended Families.

I'm still so proud of that work. I think we really did a great job making the unique application of your love language principles to step family relationships. What if one person is more motivated to be in the family than another person?

How do you navigate love language principles in that case? You know, bonding is really what that book is all about. Well, becoming a step family, the Preparing to Blend book that we've just released is about helping not just the couple be stronger and more healthy, which is what premarital counseling typically does, but we also have to take into consideration they're going to be instant parents and a step parent, and they're going to have to be dealing with transition with children and kids and attitude and, you know, all the things that go along with trying to become a functional family right off the bat. So it fundamentally changes the nature of the premarital preparation. It's really pre-family preparation. So this book is not just for the couple. It's in effect for the couple and all of their children, and actually there's some things that help them think about how does a former spouse react to you getting married, things like that.

It takes the big picture into consideration. I didn't want to just help couples have conversations. I wanted couples and children to have conversations about how they're going to be a family once the wedding occurs.

That's what makes this very different. Well, Ron, you know, many pastors and counselors are doing premarital counseling and have been for years. Not everybody takes advantage of that, but it is out there. But if you were talking to pastors and counselors and counselors and coaches about this, what would you say to them? Well, first of all, I want them to know there's a premarital gap. That's what I'm calling it. I discovered this in the process of writing this book, Gary.

I didn't know it going in. You know, the percentage of couples forming a blended family when they get married who get some sort of premarital education or preparation is far lower than it is for somebody marrying for the very first time. Get this, 75% of couples forming blended families don't get any premarital preparation.

Nothing. And when they do, here's another added problem. They're probably getting the same thing that a first-time married couple is getting who have no kids. You know, the typical premarital program is all about the couple's relationship, and those are good things. But it doesn't really deal with parenting. It doesn't deal with stepfamily finances. It doesn't deal with former spouses or what's the role of a stepparent walking in on a child's life.

It doesn't deal with any of that. And what we know from research is that those are the things that lead to distress in the couple's relationship and in the family and ultimately, you know, bring the risk of divorce. So even when they're getting some premarital prep, it's really not the kind of prep that they really need.

So we've really been missing the boat here. So if there's a pastor listening, you know, anyone who is a marriage mentor or you work with your church in any capacity, or you even know somebody at your church who does this sort of thing, please hand them this book. We've written a leader's guide so that this becomes an instant premarital program for a church leader they can just turn around and use immediately with a couple. It is written for couples, so they can do it themselves. I would much prefer that they actually go through it with a pastor or, you know, a counselor or a mentor because I think they're going to get more out of it. But we've got to kind of awaken the church to the need for specialized training for pre-blended couples, and that's what we're trying to do with this book, Preparing to Blend.

Well, it's a much-needed resource, no question about that. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Find out more about our featured resource and our guest today by going to fivelovelanguages.com. You'll find our featured resource there, Preparing to Blend, The Couple's Guide to Becoming a Smart Step Family. It's written by our guest, Ron Deal.

Ron is director of Family Life Blended, and you can find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. Ron, what are some of the mistakes that couples make when considering blending their families? The biggest mistake, Gary, is a quick turnaround.

I mean, that's one way of putting it. It's when you go through a major transition, which is what death of a spouse or divorce is, and then quickly find a new partner, recouple, and make the declaration, we're getting married and marry quickly. That quick turnaround, I got to tell you, it gives children and extended family members emotional whiplash. It is just so hard for them to keep up with what's going on and how does this affect their life and how is this changing the nature of their family and their identity within the family.

There's just so many things happening. You know, death or divorce obviously is a tremendous loss, and that requires a lot of time and grieving. And when you do a quick turnaround, not only are you telling your kids, get over what just happened and quickly get over now what's happening, you know, here's another one thrown at you, earthquake number two, maybe is a way to say it, but you're asking yourself to not grieve the past, to not really fully incorporate that into who you are, learn the lessons God would have you to learn and deal with that in a healthy way so that you're in a better emotional place to make decisions about any sort of new relationship. You're just short-circuiting the process for everybody.

That's a big mistake, and I really encourage people to avoid that. And one other thing I'll mention is the assumption that any sort of positive dating experience you're having and responses from children and extended family is going to automatically carry over to marriage and family once the wedding takes place. This is one of those insidious little truths about life. Dating is usually, whether it's a first marriage or a second or fifth marriage, dating is not really representative of real life. It doesn't really show you what life is going to require of you, what this new family or marriage is going to require of you.

It's only when you get there that you really discover what that is. And that's especially true when there's children involved. Kids kind of want to keep the peace. They want mom to feel like, boy, we're on her side and we're an advocate for what's happening in her new relationship, and we want mom to be happy. She's been so sad since dad left and we want her to be happy. And so we're happy for her, but there's another side to this.

And it's the, this is weird thing. I don't want a stepdad. I don't want this.

I would prefer dad be back in the picture. You know, whatever those feelings are, kids just tend to hide them. But then that comes out after the wedding. And then all of a sudden everybody's going, whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought we were all on forward and feeling 100% about this.

And now you're showing me another side. Well, part of what we do with Preparing to Blend is help them slow down so that they get some honest perspective and, and attunement to their children. And we give kids a chance to voice some of this so that they can work through it as a family, rather than being blindsided by it.

So, you know, I think that's an important element. Ron, it seems to me some years ago, there was research that indicated that it takes about two years after a divorce or after the death of a spouse before the individual gets back on level ground emotionally. Would you say that's in the ballpark? I think that's generally true. Of course, it depends on the nature of your relationship with a person. You know, how in love were you? Was this a widow situation where you've lost them to death and it was unexpected and you were totally unprepared?

Or is this something you've been grieving a long time as they were dying of cancer? You know, obviously there's other, but a good rule of thumb, I think, is two years. And that, what that implies, Gary, is, okay, somewhere around that two-year mark, now you're able to start thinking about dating and new relationships. You're in a better place to incorporate that and move forward. So many people, the vast majority of people, have not only dated, they've married within two years.

They're just not giving themselves enough time. Yeah, yeah. In your book, you help couples create a digital map of their blended family. What is that and how can this map help couples unite two families?

You know, I know you're familiar with this. For years, therapists have been using what they call a genogram. It's a way of just kind of mapping your family history and learning about the patterns of relationships and ultimately learning about yourself so that you're able to have more intentionality in your own relationships. Very insightful tool. Well, I have some friends that have been working on creating a website. And in effect, people can go on and create a digital genogram for their blended family ahead of time to anticipate what their family is going to look like and the relationships. And here's what's really cool about this. And we've worked it right into one of the chapters, right into the program of the book.

You're going to go online. You're going to answer a few questions. You're going to get this print out of legal relationships with children in other homes, with a sense of the temperature of the relationships that are taking place between you, former spouses, current children, future stepchildren, future step-siblings.

What's the relationship temperature between them? And when this all prints out, you get to sit back and go, wow, okay, I never really thought about it this way before, but look at child A. You know, they've got eight relationships and five of them are really healthy, but there's three that are really stressful for them. How is our marriage going to impact those three relationships?

What are we doing to help anticipate the ripple effect on that child? And you can do that with each child. You can do that with yourself.

You can do that with grandparents. It's a very insightful thing. So the website supports you once you get the print out. I've actually worked with them. We've created some video resources that you can access once you get there that just come along with it. But I've worked that into the book so that you're reflecting on these things. You're letting a pastor help you think through the implications of what you've just learned about your family. It's very insightful.

We've gotten tremendous feedback from people that have taken it in the early stages. Yeah, I can see that as being extremely helpful to a couple. You know, I think a lot of couples enter into a blended family thinking, you know, we're in love. This is wonderful.

The kids are happy. Everything's going to be fine. What we know, you and I know, and every counselor knows that it's not quite that rosy. Is it possible to have a blended family and not have struggles at all? You know, it depends on what you define as a struggle.

I think anybody who's been married or has children, there's so many rewards and payoffs. At the same time, there are so many things that God requires of you to love well in those situations that you didn't know. You just didn't know.

Here's one on me. I did not know I was going to have to learn how to manage my defensiveness when I married my wife. 36 years ago, I didn't know that was going to be a really important thing for me to learn to do. But my goodness, I've had to find self-control. I've had to learn how to understand that part of me and undo it because it can undo my marriage really, really fast. That's always true of any family or relationship. I think with blended families, of course, there's going to be some surprises, some sacrifices that you didn't know you were going to have to make.

But here's the thing. There can be a lot of reward for blended families. There's always some unseen transition for you, for children, things you just didn't anticipate.

Okay, it is what it is. What we're essentially trying to do, as you said earlier, is help people anticipate some of this and get ahead of it. I actually believe that this book as a premarital tool helps build momentum for family-ness even before you get to the altar, which just means the transition after the wedding is easier for adults and children. There's going to be stressors, absolutely. But let's diminish the transitional stress and increase the reward. That'd be a great thing. Yeah, more preparation beforehand.

Yes, that's right. Less train wrecks afterwards. I mean, we got to say this, premarital counseling works. I mean, it increases the quality of the average couple's relationship by 30% and it decreases your risk of divorce year over year by 31%.

Why would you not do that? That's a good thing. Absolutely. You talk about expectations in the book. You talk about recalibrating expectations.

What do you mean by that? Well, you know, one expectation is we love each other. You and I, as husband and wife, so clearly the kids are going to love that we love each other. They're going to love one another and they're going to love that you and I love each other. And there's always a part of children that does love this. It is a good thing from their standpoint, but often there's also another part for kids that aren't really in love with the fact that you love each other. What they wish is that mom and dad were back together.

What they wish is that we could undo what's happened in the past that was negative and somehow replace or fix or go back to the way it should have been. And so now your new relationship brings some complexity to that. It sort of sabotages any hope that mom and dad could get back together again after divorcing. And so there's a bitter side to it.

So there's a sweet and there's a bitter all at once. And if your expectation is only that there will be sweet, then all of a sudden you're really upset or disappointed or feel challenged or feel disrespected when there's a bitter response out of children. So again, recalibrating your expectation helps you deal with reality better and anticipate what that will be rather than being blindsided by it.

Yeah, yeah. One of the expectations that you talk about is repairing what has been lost, because in a blended family, there's always something been lost, right? It's either divorce, it's the death of a family. So is that a bad expectation? I think it is. In fact, I think it's one of the biggest unsaid, most people don't even realize they're thinking it until they feel the disappointment and then they go, oh, I guess I thought I was repairing the past. And so it's a big setup for everybody.

Here's the way it rolls. It's a natural thing when something that has been fractured, there's been hurt in the past, loss in the past, you really would love to be able to just fix it. So yes, my wife died and I'm left with three beautiful kids, but man, I really wish I didn't have to do this alone. Lo and behold, I discovered this woman.

She's fantastic. As a matter of fact, I think my kids like her and this is really going to be good. And the fantasy is once we get married, what has been lost will be replaced and we will be again, a whole family. And the way I would say it is you are absolutely a family. It's just a different kind of family.

It's not the family you had. It's a new family. It's a step family. It's a blended family with the complexity and different relationship dynamics that blended families have. And so step mom is going to have to bond with the kids. They're going to have to figure out how to relate to one another. There's no history there.

There's no automatic love and automatic deep respect for her as an authority figure. All of that has to come with time. And so if you're thinking repair, then you're constantly disappointed because it hasn't been repaired. What I would rather you think is new, different.

Who are we and how do we make us work? That's the better question to ask. And when you discover that, then your expectations are in the right place. Yeah.

Yeah. Ron, just recently, I was talking with a couple, an older couple, who have remarried. Both of them lost their spouse by death.

And they have adult children, of course. But in the context of a conversation, they were free to talk about their deceased spouse. And in the conversation, I brought that up. I said, you all seem real free to talk about. And they said, we do. We respect each other's spouse.

And in this case, they didn't know them, but they knew of them. And I was thinking, this is really healthy that you can. But now in a divorce situation where the former spouse is still living, you're probably not free to do that, right? Yes.

I mean, it comes with baggage, right? I mean, to talk about your former spouse, even to reflect on positive things in your marriage. Within the kid's hearing, it's sort of like, well, so why did you guys get a divorce? Or within the hearing of your new spouse, it's sort of like, well, do you still have a fondness for them, a love for them? Is your heart still attached to them? Because I really want you to be attached to me. So all of a sudden, talking about that former spouse is a negative dynamic.

But let me, and let me just show in a caveat here. And this is something I talk about in the book, in the chapter when we're helping adults understand the losses of children and begin to dialogue around this. Here's a dynamic, Gary, just imagine a parent in the single parent years, having conversations with their children about a deceased parent. They grieve together as a family. We talk about how much we miss dad and how great it was. And, you know, we cry together on Father's Day and his death date and his birthday. And there's a family grieving dynamic taking place, mom and children. But when mom recouples, falls in love with a new guy, maybe she backs off of that sort of language, because she's a little concerned that her new husband might be intimidated.

And boy, you guys are always talking about him. I don't want to live in his shadow. So she backs off of that language to honor her new husband. But think about it from the kid's point of view. They're missing dad, and they can't talk to mom about it anymore. There's no longer a family grieving process. There's just a me grieving all on my own process. And now I have to grieve, not being able to grieve with others. It just adds an element to children that's not there for the mother. That's the kind of thing that can become a point of bitterness in a child's heart toward the stepdad. It's not his fault. But since you came around, we can't talk about this stuff anymore.

It just becomes a barrier. That's the kind of thing that we help point out and then give you a conversation so that you can anticipate how to deal with this in a healthy way. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. You can find out more about today's program topic at our website, 5lovelanguages.com. You'll find some great resources there, like a podcast of this program and our featured resource, Ron Deal's book, Preparing to Blend, The Couple's Guide to Becoming a Smart Step-Family. Just go to 5lovelanguages.com to find out more. Ron, in the book you have included growth activities for couples and children.

Can you explain these and the purpose of these activities? You know, I really wanted this to be a do-it-yourself resource for couples who are planning to get married. I really want couples to go through this with a pastor or a guide, a mentor, somebody. But I'm also aware that there are lots of couples in the world who just don't have access to that.

And to be honest, their pastor or leader is not going to be able to bring much to the table. So I had to write something they could do all by themselves. So this is a read and do book. It is a workbook, if you will. So the first half of each chapter outlines, here's a unique aspect of step-family living I want to help you anticipate.

Now, here's what you're going to do with this. And it gives them what I call growing activities that help them actually put this into action in their home, even before the wedding is taking place. So sometimes it's a couple dialogue, a structured conversation. Sometimes it is a dialogue with children.

And they're actually trying to accomplish something, trying to learn something. They're trying to listen better and listen for something in particular. It's designed at the end of the day to strengthen the relationships, to build your momentum as a family, even as you head towards the wedding. So it gives kids a voice. It acknowledges some of those awkward little step-family things we've got to figure out at some point.

We might as well figure them out now. And I think it's really powerful in moving the family forward. I think that element of the book is really, really helpful because you can read things and think, well, that was a good idea, you know, but you don't do anything to implement it. But this helps implement the idea.

Yeah, it's a great idea. One of those growth activities is centered around helping couples and children anticipate what will change after the wedding. Why is that so important? Well, you know, the story of being a child in a blended family is a series of unwanted losses, changes that came that you didn't ask for, you didn't vote on, nobody gave you a chance, and it wouldn't have certainly gone the way it did if it was up to you. So whether that was parents divorcing, one parent leaving, or, you know, a loss of a parent through death, plus now single parent changes.

That is, we're in a different house. We have less room than we used to, less income than we used to. I have to go to a new school, new church, new friends, new community. And then that changed a few years later when we moved to a different house, a new community, a new school, and now it's changing again in light of this new family merger.

And so unwanted, unwanted, unwanted, unwanted change all adds up to more and more loss. If you can help kids anticipate little changes that are going to come about, then all of a sudden it helps take some of the sting out of it. Just imagine a simple little conversation, Gary, that this is the do part of this chapter, a conversation where you just sit down and you go, okay, you know what? It just occurred to me that we have, when we all move into the new house, it's going to take us 15 minutes longer to get to school in the morning. Kids, we're going to have to get up earlier than we used to. We all know how hard that is. Like, let's talk through what that's going to be like for you, and for you, and for us, and how are we going to, what's our routine going to be like?

How are we going to navigate this? So that the first day we go to school, it's not a total ambush on anybody. Again, when children wake up to, again, here's another thing that your decisions, mom or dad, have brought to my life, that just, you know, creates sadness in their heart, but also ripples into anger and frustration and irritability. If we can anticipate that, take the sting out of it, then it's a little easier to transition into it.

Yeah, and especially if the children are brought into it, right, conversation. And they get a voice in how it's all going to shake down and how it's going to happen. I mean, think about it from a power standpoint.

One of the things we know about loss is it makes you feel small. You don't have any power over what's happening. When you have some power given back to you, whatever that is, some ability to speak into what's happening in your world, then at least you feel like you've got a little voice. It's empowering. So again, when parents slow down enough to help kids anticipate a change and say, now, how do you want to handle this?

What can I do to make this easier for you? It's all unwelcome, for sure, but we're going to have to do it. What do you think? Now we're giving a little voice back to kids, a little power back, and that's really important.

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the wedding itself. How important is it for couples to integrate the children into the wedding planning, and what does that look like? Man, I gotta tell you something. My early outline of this book had the planning your wedding chapter at the end.

Somehow it was sort of an add-on. And then I started digging and looking in, and there's actually some good research around blended family weddings in particular and how kids think of them and whether the wedding is helpful to the transition to be in a family or not. And I discovered this is a big deal, and I gotta move it up in the book and emphasize it to people. And when we started floating the manuscript to engaged couples and asking them to give us feedback, every single couple, Gary, commented on this chapter how impactful it has been on them. And I'm just convinced this is really important.

Here's the bottom line. A poorly planned wedding and poorly means not including the kids, just telling them what's going to happen and expecting them to be happy about it. It can actually make things worse for your family, but a well-planned wedding where, again, you give them a voice and they get to say what they want to do, what role they want to play, if at all, if any, and they're heard and they feel like somebody cared enough to even engage them around this type of thing, and then you pull that off, it can actually be something that's not just a day of remembrance for the couple, but an actually day of remembrance for the entire family. Not that it's a magic moment. It doesn't actually bond everybody and everybody's happy, but what it does is it puts a marker in the ground and it sort of says, all right, now things are different and I had a role in connecting into this new family.

I gotta tell you one story that actually feedback came back to us so quickly. We were able to wrap it into the book. You will read in the book about a couple that I know that they were planning to elope. They had plans. They were going to fly away, do the thing, get married, come home. Hey kids, we're a family. They realized after reading this book, that is a really dumb idea. It really is not only dumb, but it makes things worse for the kids.

They have no experience of the whole wedding phenomenon. They started talking to the children. They engaged in the conversation. They guided growing activity and all of a sudden the kids wanted to be a part of this and wanted to play this role. They planned a small wedding for family and friends.

The kids got to be intimately involved with it. They ended up making a family. They took a canvas, a blank canvas. Instead of, you know, the unity candle thing that a lot of people do, they had a blank canvas.

Everybody put paint on their hands. They all got to put their handprint, their fingerprints to this new family during the wedding. Later they put dates and, you know, family on it and it's hanging on the wall in their home. It's become a symbol of who we now are with one another. You still have to work out the relationships after the wedding, but at least it's symbolic of what we're becoming. They would have missed all of that had they gone and eloped.

This chapter helps people slow down, really see and make plans with children in a way that helps everybody. I was talking to someone the other day, Ron, who had been to a wedding of a blended family. Both the husband and the wife had children and they said, we observed during the wedding every one of the children were sitting there crying and I had the thought. I didn't say anything to that couple, but I had the thought, you know, I don't think they were prepared for this.

Yeah, you know, I talk about that in the chapter, like, why does this happen? Well, again, it's that part of them is happy that this is happening. And there's another part of them that is deeply sad, that is confused, that is wondering, how does this now impact my mom's getting married to this new guy? How does this impact my life? How's this impacting my dad? How is he feeling about this? Because I know dad didn't want the divorce to happen in the first place, so he's going to be hurting over mom. All of that is rushing through their heart and mind and soul and it adds up to some tears on the wedding day. Now, mom is not feeling that.

She's happy and excited and moving forward. But if mom can connect into that part of her children, into the sadness, for example, now they can walk together still, even though they have a different experience, they can still walk together. That's what we want at the end of the day. Instead of kids being isolated in their in their hurt, for them to be loved by somebody who can give them some guidance through it. Yeah, not trying to deny their feelings of sadness or whatever, but entering into accepting those things and acknowledging and discussing it.

Yeah, right, right. Well, the whole thing of parenting and finding unity in parenting, we don't always have this even in first marriages without children, you know. So how challenging can this be in a blended family? Yeah, well, you know, you and I wrote in Building Love Together in Blended Families in our book, How Important This Is, and we spent a lot of time trying to lay out how parent and step-parent can work together and play to one another's strengths. I want to do that in this book, Preparing to Blend, to help couples anticipate working together. And, you know, for years, Gary, I felt like if there was something I hadn't quite really done, well, it's give people a kind of systematic process to talk through in order to move their parenting forward and get on the same parenting page, I guess is the way to say it.

And so I think I pulled it off in this book. You're going to do a history of how you were parented, the type of parent you've been as in a first marriage as a single parent. If you have kids, if you don't have children, you're entering a blended family, anticipating what kind of parent do I want to be. It's going to systematically walk you through all of that and then say, all right, how do we merge who we are and what we believe about parenting, at least to get us started. Now, life is going to teach you more about parenting, and of course it does that, but at least you're on the same page with your heart and your intent on day one. That's so very important.

Here's one thing we know. Children give biological parents a lot of grace. When you mess up, they love you anyway, they forgive you, and you're my dad, end of story, I love you. Children don't give a lot of grace to step-parents.

As a matter of fact, they give you a lot of judgment. And so if you have oops and oops, it can really hurt your ability to bond with your stepchildren over time. So trying to anticipate, get on the same page, work together, be a team, very important principles to start your family off well. It's great to have you with us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Our goal is to provide help and hope for your relationships. Ron Deal of Family Life Blended is our guest. He's written the book Preparing to Blend, The Couple's Guide to Becoming a Smart Step-Family.

Find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Ron, you mentioned just before the break that kids often don't give step-parents as much grace as their biological parent. And I'm wondering if that then causes the step-parent to try a little harder, to push a little further, to overcompensate for that. What do you say to the step-parent who's saying, oh, that's me and I'm trying so hard? Yeah, for all parents, great question. For all parents, fear and desperation are lousy motivators in parenting.

They will push you in the wrong direction, not in the right direction. So if you're trying so hard for this kid to like you, to connect with them, to develop some trust so that you can really be family to each other, and then they're like, no, I don't want this. I don't need this. Or it's fine. You're here, but don't tell me what to do. Then you feel defeated. You feel like a failure. And so your desperation leads you what? To try a little harder or push a little harder or get angry. But that's really going to help.

Now I'm angry at you because you don't love me. That's really going to help a child like you. No, it's not. So those are things that, wow, you've got to keep that in check. You've got to recognize this is my need more than it's their need.

It's my need that we're family more than it is their need that we're family right away. I've got to be patient. I've got to slow down my heart.

This is going to sound really weird, Chris. Don't try harder. Try smarter, which may mean slow down and not even work hard at all. Like take it as it comes. Be intentional, but don't be over the top because that's where you get into trouble. I think there's a paradox there. When you relax into, okay, this is where we're at. I'm going to make the best of it. That actually opens up the door for things to move forward.

It just goes slow and that's okay. It's supposed to. So again, that's part of recalibrating expectations that then set you up to be more successful. Well, when it comes to discipline of a child, is it generally better for the biological parent to administer the discipline, at least in the early stages of blending?

Yes, it is. And it's very important for our conversation today preparing to blend because, again, it's a little deceptive. Even before the wedding, many step-parents report that the children sort of respond well to their direction, all right? So then after the wedding, the step-parents are like, okay, I'm full-fledged family now. I'm a parent.

So they step even further into behavioral setting limits and that sort of thing. It's like, oh, wow. Then the kids react and it's like, who are you? You're not my dad. You can't tell me what to do.

Where did that come from? Well, again, it's that everybody's in transition and this is just hard reality and we're all trying to figure out what it means for us to work together and be together as a family unit. So in the early stages, it's really important for biological parent, in this case, mom, to do the hard work of discipline when that's required, to set limits, to set boundaries, whether it's putting a child in timeout, a young child, or taking away the car keys with a teenager. That's got to be the biological parents doing because you have a clearly defined role and relationship with the child.

They know who you are and you know who you are. But the step-parent is ambiguous and undefined and everybody's a little confused about what it means for you to be the step-parent. And so you just stay away from those hard moments in parenting. Let the bio-parent do it. Support them.

You're a part of it. Talk about it behind closed doors ahead of time. You're still part of the parenting team. But when it comes time to actually talk and deal with the child, that's the bio-parent's job.

Now, when you do that early phases, later, as your relationship has strengthened and trust has developed between you and the child, then you can start moving into those active roles. But it's just a matter of timing. Well, let's talk about money. Oh boy. You have a whole chapter dealing with merging money and estate planning because a lot of folks don't dig very deeply into this area before they get married.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, here's the thing. A few years ago, me and a couple of guys, a financial planner and a state attorney, we teamed up. We wrote a whole book on this. The Smart Step Family Guide to Financial Planning.

And so this chapter for couples who are engaged in planning to get married is sort of a summary of some of the key elements of that book. We all know money just brings to the surface a lot of emotion, you know, good and bad, right? It's so deep within us. It brings to the surface my need to care for my kids, you know, brings to the surface trust issues. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not going to put my name on that bank account? Well, why not, you know? Do you not trust me? Can I not trust you because you want to keep something separate from me?

What does this mean? Especially if any of the adults, either one of the persons in the couple has had, you know, struggles with money in a previous relationship or money, they fought about money or somebody hid money or somebody, you know, spent all the money at the end right before the divorce happened, whatever. That just creates an even greater sensitivity. So this is a flashpoint for many people, not everybody, but for many people. I think a lot of pre-blended couples avoid talking about money because they inherently know it's a corrosive subject and they just want to avoid things that will hurt our romance.

I love you. We're feeling good about this. Let's move forward.

Let's not talk about hard things. Well, I think you're going to have to talk about it eventually so you might so you might as well start into that so that you don't get, again, blindsided later after the wedding. I agree fully, you know, if they can be honest about assets, liabilities, all those things beforehand, lay it all on the table, and then the attitude of, you know, is it going to be our money or is it going to be your money, you know?

Yeah, huge, huge area. Let me just add one more thought here. I think everybody assumes goodwill towards, you know, hey, I wouldn't be marrying you if I didn't trust you, if I didn't love you, if I didn't feel like God has a vision for our lives and we're headed down the same road together, and this is a good thing. You wouldn't be getting married at all if you didn't believe all that. And so along with that comes the, so if I get hit by a bus the day after our wedding, I'm assuming you're going to take care of my kids. The assumption of goodwill, right? And here's what I've learned in working with two other guys who specialize in money matters for blended families is that goodwill only lasts so long and it's a one-way street sometimes.

You may have great goodwill toward taking care of my children, but they also have expectations, especially if they're a little older, teenagers or young adults or older adults, you know, in their 30s and have a life. Couples who get married later in life have adult children who are deeply invested in the family inheritance, in mom's dishes, in, you know, grandma's portrait that's on the wall, that I've got my name on that. Like they care about those things a lot and their opinion may be different than your spouse's opinion about how money should be handled. So all of a sudden, you know, I talked with an estate attorney one time, I was doing an interview for a money magazine, and they said that their experience was that nearly half of the contested estate cases that went to court in the state of New York, they did a study, nearly half of them were between step-parents and step-children. It's a fragile relationship to try to figure out, all right, dad died, now we're stuck trying to figure out what to do with all this stuff and we all have an opinion.

You're much better served, you and your family and the generations to come, if you have those constructive conversations ahead of time, figure it out, put it out on paper, inform the children when you're living, and now money serves us rather than money being something that divides us. Yeah, let's address one other topic and that is sometimes a couple is thinking about marriage but their parents on one or both sides are questioning the whole thing and how do you handle that? Well, obviously, the circumstances are going to differ from situation to situation but I think, you know, the overarching rule of thumb is listen and try to hear what their concerns are and there's going to be some pain behind those concerns, so ultimately that's what you want to listen for.

Now, listening may sound like the obvious thing to say, so let me explain what I'm telling people not to do. What couples often do, whether this is with children or with their parents or their siblings or whoever it is, extended family, they often as a couple go into defense mode in trying to convince the other people why they shouldn't be concerned. Imagine somebody planning to get married, form a blended family, maybe they're already engaged and that person's mother or father is expressing some concern and you say, oh look dad, it's okay, he's a great guy, he's going to take care of us, it's not going to happen again, what happened with my first husband is not going to happen with, don't worry about it, you know, what are you doing? Well, you're minimizing his concern, his anxiety, you're telling him I don't want to hear that and now I'm going into being an attorney and convince you why you're wrong.

None of that helps dad feel any better about this. Listening is about, okay, I'm not sure I understand your point of view, let me try to get behind this, tell me what's going on, what are your concerns, use those words, concern, what are you worried about, what are you fearful is going to happen in light of our family, let them lay it out. Now you know what you're dealing with, now you can say, huh, I'm wondering what we can do to address that, is there anything I could do, talk to my future husband, talk with my kids, what is the need here you have?

You may not be able to meet all the needs there of your extended family but at least they feel heard and at least you've shown some respect towards what's bothering them. It might be that you slow down a little bit moving towards a wedding or you might make some different decisions in light of what you're learning. All of that is to be determined but if you don't start with the listening piece, you'll never know what you need to do. Ron, before we close, what kind of things can churches do to help the blending process? Well, obviously we believe in premarital counseling in church and pastors do. We want to do good premarital preparation for blended family couples as well and what that means is you got to get retooled, you got to understand step-family living. By the way, this book is designed for pastors and leaders just as much as it is for couples. So go online familylife.com preparing to blend and you'll find a section for leaders, a free leaders guide that you can download, tips and tools for helping to do blended family weddings, extra activities there for couples to be thinking through and then you have this unified premarital program and just do it. Just start talking, using the book as a catalyst to ignite conversations with couples and get them thinking about their relationship in new and innovative ways and there you go, you're off and running and that does a world of good to help them anticipate and prepare for life after the wedding. Well, Ron, this has been a fascinating conversation about a super, super important issue and I do hope that those who are listening who are in blended families or thinking about a blended family will get this book, work through it. If you're a pastor or a church leader or coach or counselor, this is going to be a tool that will help you be effective in helping couples get ready for a blended family. So thanks for being with us today and I hope this book is going to help a lot of couples have a healthy start in their blended family. Thank you, Gary. There are so many questions we didn't get to but good news, you can find our featured resource, Ron Deal's book, Preparing to Blend at FiveLoveLanguages.com, subtitled The Couple's Guide to Becoming a Smart Step-Family.

Again, just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, if your faith is fractured, if you feel like walking away from God because of what you've seen in the church, don't miss our conversation. Dr. Lena Abu-Jamra will join us. A big thank you to our production team today, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.