Help For Pre-Blended Families

So I remember Dave meeting your stepmom for the first time a few months before we got married, and she and your dad had been married only 10 years.

And she wasn't a follower of Christ, but she was giving me some advice before our wedding day. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app.

This is Family Life Today. She said, You may think you know who he is, but when I got married to Dave's dad, it was my second marriage, and I had a son from my first marriage. And it was his second marriage, and he had four kids, five kids, actually. One had passed away.

My brother, yeah. From that marriage. And she said, I had no idea who this man was. She said, I was a mom that was desperate. I had just moved to a new country.

I had just married this very successful man, and I was desperate to not get divorced again. You know what I'm going to say, what she found out? Yeah, I mean, it was something she had no idea. She did not know until, I don't know how long it was after their wedding, but she found out probably within a week or two that my dad was an alcoholic.

Like an alcoholic who was passing out every night and losing his car. And I said, So what did you do? And she said, Oh, I thought I need to do something. This woman had spunk, let me tell you. And she said, I ended up, she said, I thought, what's important to this man? She said, I knew instantly money. Money is what drives him. Money and things.

Yeah. And so she said he would pass out, and I don't even know where he was at times when he passed out. He was gone from the house. And I would take a bat, and I would destroy the furniture. I would break mirrors.

Lamps. I would break everything. And he'd wake up, he'd come home the next day, and he said, What happened? And she said, This is what you did when you were drunk last night. And she said, I did this about five times. And after the fifth time, he said, I can't afford to drink any longer.

I mean, it's funny, but it's tragic. But it worked. That's all I know is I remember a different dad the last 10 years of his life because he stopped drinking. And it was because my stepmom sort of helped him. But I never knew she had that conversation with you.

Like, you better know your husband because she didn't. And so we've got Ron Deal with us today to talk about that very thing about how do you prepare to get married when you're walking into a blended situation. So welcome back to Family Life. Thank you.

Baseball bat therapy. I had no idea. Ron, maybe this is something new.

Okay, I'll keep it in mind. Ron is the director of our Family Life blended ministry here at Family Life. All of you know him. And he's written many books. I didn't know till our last time we talked. Eight books and now a ninth book.

And this one's very interesting. And we endorsed it because, number one, because of you, Ron. I mean, everywhere we go, whenever we run into a blended family, we had one a year ago. So walk up to us in an airport and they said, Are you Dave and Anne Wilson? We're like, Oh, do you go to our church? They're like, No, we heard your voice. We recognize your voice. We've never seen you, Mike. What?

And they were in a blended thing. And we said, Do you know Ron's material? Oh, yes, it's life saving. I mean, it's really you are.

I mean, I don't know how to say it. A gift from God to the blended world. Ron, I think I have probably promoted you, your podcast and your books more than any other material that I have ever because there's such a great need and people are longing for help that are blended. I appreciate that so much. Those are very kind words. And you're right about that. People for years complained to me.

Ron, where's the Christian voice on the blended family? And they were right to do so because when I started doing this almost 30 years ago now, there really wasn't anything. And there were a few things, but you couldn't find them.

People couldn't put their hands on them. And now that's just not true anymore. Family Life Blended, you know, the department that I lead here at Family Life, we have books, we have live events, we have virtual events, we have online courses that people can take online on demand. We have a Family Life Blended podcast, which I am so proud of.

I think it's a regular dose of really good stuff for people. And it's free. Like there's all kinds of resource that's available now.

We have never had something specifically for engaged couples to help them prepare for the wedding and to empower pastors and mentors and coaches to be able to ready those couples for the wedding. And now we do with Preparing to Blend. Yeah. So talk about Preparing to Blend. We've already talked about it a little bit, but it's a different reality for a blended family. And I say family because it's not just a couple now getting married. It's a family becoming a family.

And there's different issues that I don't even understand and you do. So as you prepared this Preparing to Blend book, what were you thinking? What's your hope? My hope is equipping not just the couple, but their children and them as a unit to move forward towards the family that they're creating. Now I will tell you this, anything we do in marriage education and premarital counseling, for example, there's a little bit of, let's call it assessment in it. Like getting you to start talking with your children about your expectations for how life will go and their expectations for how life will go, all of a sudden sometimes results in a collision of, oh, you have different expectations than we do. Couples know this, right? When you get married and you realize, oh, I just thought it would go this way. And you were thinking that way.

And now what do we do? Well, what if that's five people or seven people who have those expectations rather than just two of you as adults and you're trying to deal with the collision of all those expectations. Well, if you can get out in front of that conversation and proactively enter it in a collaborative way with children, giving them a voice, especially kids. You know, one of the journeys of children we know into a typical blended family is a lot of unwanted circumstances that they didn't really ask for, but yet they're being asked to adjust to it. That's taking control out of their hands.

If you can give them a little bit of control into how life is going to go, it makes it easier for them to embrace how life is going to go and be a part and contributor rather than somebody who's fighting against it. What would you say are some of the things that couples need to have their eyes open to about this? Let's talk about the wedding for a minute.

Okay. I've really been struck by the feedback we've gotten from this manuscript so far. Couple after couple after couple said, you know what, that chapter on planning the wedding just really opened our eyes and made us realize how much we need to involve our children in the planning of the wedding and then letting them say how much they want to be a part of the wedding.

I just want us to pause for a minute. So research is really clear. When children are involved in the idea of their parent getting married, when they're somehow included in even the decision-making process, invited into the discussion about it, in other words, they're not blindsided by the announcement that their parent is engaged, number one. Number two, when they're actively involved in the planning of the wedding and they get to participate in the wedding in a way that they are comfortable with that honors the couple's relationship but also gives some acknowledgement to the child's previous relationships, their previous family, if you will, the fact that they have another dad or mom. In other words, the wedding happens with some sensitivity to that as a consideration. Then kids are far more apt, A, to be excited about the wedding.

Ron, I'm guessing that there are some kids that aren't excited about the wedding and really don't even want to participate because they don't want it to happen. It happens all the time. People hear stories all the time.

I get emails all the time. We planned this wedding. We talked to the kids.

They knew it was coming. Six months go by and then three of my adult kids don't show up. Or my teenage daughter just cried the entire way through and just, you know, it brought a dark cloud over the entire what's going on. Well, I'm here to tell you there's a lot of emotions brewing under the surface for kids and weddings and funerals and birthdays and Christmas and major holidays all bring those emotions to the surface. They are excited for you and at the very same time, they are sad. They're mourning. They're mourning what, you know, I wish mom and dad could get back together, not mom marry somebody else.

And this just makes it impossible for that to happen. Or in the case of a child's parent who has passed away, I can't see mom happy and kissing and committing to another man and not think about my dad and how much I miss him. It's not about I don't want this stepdad in my world necessarily. I mean, maybe there's something about him they don't necessarily like.

Most of the time they do like and they love the idea of their mom being with a partner and somebody who's going to help take care of her. But what's also going on inside is I miss my dad. He was everything to me. And this just reminds me. It resurrects that grief and that pain. And so all of a sudden it pours out at the wedding. Well, gosh, that's just difficult and awkward and hard for everybody. What we want to try to do in this chapter, for example, and in the activity that parents and children do together is we want them to start talking about the wedding and your role and your thoughts and your feelings so that that stuff comes out sooner rather than at the event. So that the child is able to say, you know what, I'm not comfortable with this, but I would be comfortable with that.

Would it be OK if we did it that way? And again, we're giving them a little control in this lack of control world that they live in. And the adults are learning something about their child.

Think about the movement. A parent is going, oh, I hear you. I see you. Now, think about that for just a second, because when people are falling in love, I mean, you guys have talked about this an awful lot, right? This happens with first married couples as well. We fall in love. We get blind. We get stupid.

Right. And we just stop seeing anything but what we want to see. And pre blended couples kind of do the same thing. And one of the things they stop seeing sometimes inadvertently, totally inadvertently is their own children. Yes, they're aware and sensitive, but on another level, all their emotional energy is going into this person they've fallen in love with.

They can't help it. And so when the child speaks and the parent says, oh, that's what you need. Now I'm seeing my child and the child needs that. They need to feel their parents presence. If I could say it, they need to feel that their parent is not completely abandoning them in this wedding. And so it's sort of like this delicate dance of all these relationships that the parent is connected to. And when the child gets seen, when they feel like they have a little bit of a voice being considered, they've had time to ponder what will it be like to walk down the aisle during the wedding and do what I'm supposed to do, light the unity candle, whatever it is. They get a head start on all the emotions and on the grief so that it's less intense and less overwhelming the day of.

That's so wise. And just another reason why premarital counseling is for the family, not just for the couple. Yeah, I would think you said a little bit that, you know, the kids can be there. It sounds like they really should be there. Maybe not every session, but part of them, just because you want communication to be happening throughout, not later.

It's going to happen later one way or another, maybe not in a healthy way, but this could help prepare them for that, right? I've never asked you, Dave, were you there when your dad got remarried? No. No, I wasn't there. I didn't really even know it happened. But you went on their honeymoon. Well, I didn't know it was their honeymoon. I thought I went on a trip with my mom, my dad, his new wife. I found out later it was their honeymoon to Europe and I was not probably the best thing they wanted on that trip. Do you remember how you felt when you realized, A, this is their honeymoon and B, I didn't even know I was getting married and where does that leave me? I'm just wondering how you process that and how old were you? I was 12, maybe 13. And yeah, I felt like nobody saw me and cared. Like, that'd been nice to know, you know, type deal. So I felt left out.

I remember your stepmom said that they're in Europe at a strange hotel and you're in a room all by yourself across the hall and you were petrified. So I went into their room. How about that on your honeymoon night? Absolutely. Right. Well, but of course.

Isn't that a little metaphoric, right? Here you want to be seen. You want to be included. You want to be cared for. And you feel like you've been pushed to the side, literally in a different room across the hall.

That is the exact opposite of what we want parents to do because you process that through the child's heart and mind. I'm small. I'm insignificant. Nobody sees me. I'm over here. I'm left out.

I'm left behind. And now you want me to fall in love with my step-parent and fall in love with your new us. Your us has cost me a lot.

Why would I love your us? You see, we've just set the family off on a path to start becoming a family and already the odds are against them. There's already hurt and injury going on between the relationships. We want to undo that.

We want to make it the exact opposite of that. Let me tell you a quick little story. A great couple, friends of mine, Jason and Kristen. They read an early version of the manuscript. They were about to get married. And they said, and I was going to do the wedding, by the way, and they said, oh, we were going to elope.

We're not doing that. We've realized how important it is that her children be involved in this wedding. And so they sat down. They had a conversation. They followed the activity that that chapter includes, which gets them in dialogue with the kids. They started listening. They started hearing and they started sculpting as a family unit what a wedding would look like and what role the kids would play. I stood in the front of the auditorium and watched two of her three children walk her down the aisle. And when they got up to the front and I said, who gives this bride to this man, they said, the big brother said, my brother and I. It was so precious. They went and sat down.

Her daughter was holding her flowers and held the bouquet that the bride had walked down the aisle with. As a family unit, they had decided to be creative. Mom's a real creative, artistic person. And so they, at one point in the ceremony, instead of a unity candle or the blending of the sands thing that some people are doing, they had a blank canvas up on the front of the auditorium and they painted their hands black and everybody got to put their hand to this new family and put their fingerprints on it.

That's awesome. And it allowed me to talk about how each child in their own way, in their own timing, can put their fingerprints on this family when they're ready. That there was no pressure for that and that the adults were making this commitment and they were asking nothing of the children.

They were just inviting them to be a part of the process. Now that canvas, and now it has a date of when they got married, is hanging on the wall in their house. And it stands for all time, not as the culmination of becoming a family, because they were just starting the process of becoming a family. It did culminate the couple's relationship in forming a marriage and a covenant that will be the basis of this new family. Everybody else just gets to see that canvas from time to time and remember, yeah, I'm a part of this too. I'm a part of this too.

And I decide how I put my fingerprints on this family and to what degree I do that. And that's the journey that they have begun. They would have eloped and had none of that. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, the whole time you're saying that and thinking, well, they almost missed it. Yeah, they almost missed this beautiful memory. It's more than a memory.

It's a shaping of the future that they prepared for. It legitimizes the family, the marriage, and the kids get to be a part of it in the ways that they wanted to be a part of it. You know, I hate to say the contrast, but your circumstance sort of de-legitimized their marriage in your eyes.

It just made it so much harder. Yeah, and I can remember as a son being now in a blended family. Now, I still live with my biological mom most of my life, but I didn't know how to function in this family. It was never talked about even after. And now you had a stepbrother. Yeah, and I had her son. But no one talked about it.

And I didn't know. And so, yeah, it was just it was it was been I mean, listen to this man. Like, wow, wouldn't wouldn't that be nice if dad would say, hey, I want to fly you down before we get married. I want you to meet my new wife. I want you to meet your new stepbrother. And let's talk about how to do this right.

You know, I just think it's a long time ago, but that's what couples I'm guessing. I'm not that that unique. I don't think that happens most of the time. And now you have a tool to say, let's do it differently with a different result. And that's just one chapter talking about thinking about your wedding and involving the kids in that. There's so many other things that are discussed. Just imagine, Dave, if you had had a conversation with your future stepbrother, like, so what do I call you? You know, just and somebody would have given a little guidance to that discussion where you work through that awkward thing and you don't have to guess at it. Because you actually had a structured conversation that allowed you to figure out a way to come to something you and he were comfortable with. It's when you guess in life that you just say, well, I think this is what I'm comfortable with. And you start calling somebody that. And they're like, hey, I don't like that. Now we've got to disconnect.

You know, all of that stuff can be avoided, to be honest. It just takes time on the front end in order to get there. How many sessions, how would you do it if I want to help somebody or if I want if I'm a couple that's going to go through it? What's it going to look like? Well, there are 10 working chapters to the book. When I say working chapters, there's 10 content chapters that have a growing activity attached to them. The activity is, all right, we're not just going to talk about this conversation needs to take place between stepbrothers.

We're going to actually do it. And there's a guided process in each chapter. So it's very much a working pre-blended family counseling program for couples. Again, they can do it in conjunction with a pastor or a mentor or somebody who's giving some additional guidance to the process. So ideally, it's 10 sessions, however you want to spread those out.

I do talk about in the leader's guide, sometimes you don't get that. Somebody comes to you and you got three weeks and they're getting married. What do you do? Here's some guidance on how to choose what you're going to do with your time. And I think you can just jump in and do what you can do in the amount of time you have. I actually think couples can just keep doing the activities as well. Yeah, why not?

It's still intentionality. Can you give us an example of these growth activities for a family? Like what would be one of those? Okay, so the one we sort of just were talking about was let's have a conversation around what names or terms we're going to use for one another. And so the growth activity is, first of all, kind of asking the couple to have a conversation with just the two of them around the parameters of this. What are you comfortable with?

What am I comfortable with? Now let's go to the kids and see what they're thinking. And it gives the couple a little lead in, a little script to say something like, hey look, you know, we're all getting to know each other really well and the wedding's coming up in a few months. And, you know, at that point we're going to be a family and someday, you know, I may as your stepparent take you to school and you may introduce me to your teacher. And you're going to sit there and kind of go, wow, who is this guy to me? Is it mom's new husband? Is that my stepdad? Is that my bonus dad?

Is that Dave? You know, I mean, what do I call this person? And I'm going to have to introduce you at some point as my stepson or daughter.

And you know what? I just think it'd be good for us to figure out what we're comfortable with and what we call each other. Now here's the deal. Whatever you're comfortable with, I'm going to be good with, as long as it's, you know, has some basic respect to it. But I want you to know, I don't need you to use any particular term.

Now notice what we're doing there. We're giving the child permission to have their own feelings and their own opinion about this relationship. And they get to decide the term that they're comfortable with, which by the way, tells you a lot about how they're feeling about this parent. If they're like, well, you're my dad.

I just, that just told you something, right? By the way, a very small percentage of children ever use the term dad or mom for their stepparent. But if they say I'm comfortable with that, you go, well, okay, if you're good with that, I'm good with that. I'd love to introduce you as my son.

Would that be okay with you? Oh, by the way, is there ever a time that would not be okay, like a little awkward? Like if your dad were standing next to me, we're at your soccer game, and another friend comes up and I say, this is my son and you know your dad is listening to me say this about you. That might be a little awkward. How would you feel about that? And the child says, you know, I don't want you saying that when my dad's around. Got it. I'm good with that. What would you like me to say in that moment?

What a conversation. The child is empowered. The child, listen to what's happening.

They're seeing you as somebody approachable, loving. I can trust you with this stuff. You, you care about my feelings. You're not this ogre who's just telling me what's got what and what, you know, we're going to do this. You're going to call me that.

You're not dictating. You're actually connecting with me. You care about me.

You do that. You're gaining trust and emotional safety. And you just took a huge leap forward to be a family. Ron, it brings tears to my eyes because I have so many friends whose parents were divorced and felt like they were never seen or heard. And so what you're doing is you're giving the kids a voice and they feel like what I say and what I feel matters.

Yes. It is so smart for couples to think in advance about the issues that may be ahead, not to be caught up in the emotional swirl of an engagement and the infatuation and the love that is there, that is beginning to grow and blossom, but to think practically about how to build healthy, strong relationships. And one of the things I love about Ron Deal's new book Preparing to Blend is the number of exercises he's included in the book, projects that you do together as a couple and as a family with your children to help you get ready for the blending that is coming. I mean, there are going to be challenges ahead.

We've got to know that going in. But you can help reduce some of the severity of the speed bumps you're facing by going through Ron's book Preparing to Blend. We've got the book in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can request your copy online at familylifetoday.com or call to get a copy. The number is 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Again, the title of the book is Preparing to Blend by Ron Deal. Order online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. And don't forget, there's an event happening two weeks from now on Thursday, October 14th, Friday, October 15th in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. It's a national conference, the Summit on Step Family Ministries, and the focus this year is helping couples prepare.

In fact, that's the title, Prepare. So if you're involved in organizing the premarital counseling in your local church, if you're involved in doing premarital counseling, and if you have started doing a lot more premarital counseling with couples who are blending a family or couples who are bringing kids into a first marriage, to come to this two-day event in Atlanta will do a great job of equipping you to help others prepare to blend. You can find out more about the Summit on Step Family Ministries when you go to our website, familylifetoday.com.

There is more information available there. In fact, David Robbins, the president of Family Life, is here with me. And David, we've been hosting these Summit events for many years now, and it's always exciting to us to see how God is working in and through the couples who attend to help strengthen blended families and blended marriages. Yeah, the thing that I love most about the Summit on Step Family Ministries is that I've been to several now, and the people you meet there are like-minded, they care about others in a deep, passionate way.

That's why they're there to learn, and I've met some people at the Summit that have become dear friends over the last few years. And the reason we're committed to this is that our vision says every home a godly home, and every home means every home. And whether that's a blended family, whether that's a family in the U.S. suburbs or in the inner city, whether you live in a megacity in China or in a village in Africa, we are committed to bringing the gospel and the principles of marriage and family, and what God offers up in his word to as many homes as possible. And there is a rising group of families that are blended families, and we want to speak to the felt needs and pain points that meet them where they're at and help their marriages last. And I know this vision of every home being a godly home resonates with many of our listeners, and we know that because many of you make this vision possible through your financial support of the ministry, either as occasional financial supporters or as monthly legacy partners. Thank you for providing the fuel necessary for this kind of ministry to occur. And if you're a regular listener and you've never made a donation to support the ongoing work of Family Life Today, this is a good day to do that.

Go to familylifetoday.com, donate online, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate over the phone. And thanks in advance for partnering with us to help every home become a godly home. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when our friend Janelle Breitenstein is going to be here to talk about how we can mark and mold and shape our children, pointing them in a positive direction, and marking their lives permanently. We'll have that conversation with Janelle on Monday. Hope you can join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.