Ron Deal: Well-Blended: Stepfamilies, Loss, and Healing Together

You were six when your parents got divorced. Oh, you want to go back there? Yeah, I do.

All right. And then you were 13 when your dad got remarried and you entered into a blended family. What were some of your first memories of that? Well, we went to Europe and Italy, and I did not know it until years later. It was their honeymoon. 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. I did not know it until years later. It was their honeymoon. And so the first night, they give me a hotel room across the hall from them. We're in another country.

I'm 13 years old. I'm scared to death. And I go over and knock on the door and sleep on their floor, in their bedroom, because I was so scared. On their honeymoon night. Not knowing this is their honeymoon night. I mean, can you imagine?

I mean, they never said anything like, you can't do this. It was just like, oh, yeah, come on in. But that's my first memory. And I didn't even know it at the time.

I am stepping into a whole new reality. And I have no idea. I don't think any of us did.

I don't think my dad did or my stepmom. I'm not sure most people are. It's new. Yeah, it's like we are now in a new reality. And how do we navigate that? And every family is that way. We were that way when we got married. But if you think about a blended family or step family, man, oh, man. It just gets a little more complicated. It's complicated.

So they need help. And we've got help in the studio with us today. We've got Ron Deal, who directs our blended ministry here at Family Life. Welcome back to Family Life Today, Ron. Hey, thanks, guys. Always good to be with you. You did such a great job hosting Family Life Today. I appreciate what you do. We appreciate you. You're being kind because what you do in this blended area is the best in the world. I literally say this to people anytime I talk about what you do and what Family Life has through your part of this whole ministry is blended. And talk about, you know, how do you help families that are blending? It's a new reality.

What's that look like? Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. I also want to let people know that, like you said, we do have so many resources now. I have to just say, you know, the Christian community has been slow to kind of jump on this bandwagon to create resources for blended families from a biblical perspective.

But I'm so proud of Family Life. For the last 10 years that I've been here, we've been creating all kinds of resources. And I tell people now, now you've got too many options.

You're going to have to decide what avenue you like to get it. Are you a reader? Are you a watcher?

Are you a listener? Because we have all of that stuff. We've got podcasts, the Family Life Blended Podcast. We've got books and resources. Yeah. Haven't you written like 48 books or something now, Ron?

Yeah. Maybe not that many, but a number of them. Me and others on our team, actually, we've got, you know, 10 or 12 books that are available just through our ministry. We've got video series. We've got eight small group series now that are available to people.

You know, that eight small group series. I would guess most people don't even know that. They don't. In fact, I quizzed some people on our Family Life staff this week and they didn't know that. We have so many things that people can choose now. And we're talking today about this new online course that we have. I am thrilled about because it's so accessible. You could be anywhere and move at your own pace through this new online on demand course offered by Family Life, along with a number of other courses we have.

And the one we're talking about is Well Blended. It's a collection we've kind of pulled from events that we've done and podcasts that we've produced and different things. We've put it all together in a very structured way. So again, through your computer, sitting at home at your pace and your convenience, you can move through this course. And it's just really been fun putting this together and making it available. Well, let's talk a little bit about what's in the course. I know yesterday we talked about, you know, you took my Beatles song, All You Need Is Love, and you said, nope, you need more than love.

You need faithfulness and trust. Yes. And actually spent a great day talking about that and even listening to a clip from the online course.

What else is loaded in this course? Yeah, so one of the things we talk about in Well Blended is, you know, the journey of finding family unity, connecting relationships, building those, and some of the challenges that happen along the way. Our listeners may know that every year in the spring we put on a live event. It's also a live stream event.

It's sent all over the world and you can participate from wherever you live. And it's called Blended and Blessed. Each one of those over the last five years has been collected and is available online as well as a small group study, something you can go through as a couple. And then we do a new event with new speakers, a new theme every year. Well, in 2018, our Blended and Blessed event, we had a panel discussion, and we're going to hear a couple of clips today that are in the Well Blended online course that came out of that panel discussion. The first couple you're going to hear is Andy and Heather, and they're talking about some of the challenges that they faced building family. Andy and I, we've been married almost 11 years, and we were blessed to have a step-family ministry at the church we were attending at the time. And so we went through the class and we read Ron's book and we thought that was going to be our map.

But as we would leave class, we would talk and we're like, those poor suckers. We love each other and we love God and we are not going to have problems like those people, right? Our kids get along, we go to the park.

This is going to be great. And Andy's ex-wife, when she left him, she left the family. So his girls have never seen their mom in over 13 years.

I've never met her. And I considered myself a good mom, a good single mom. And I thought, wow, I am going to go in, I am going to love these girls, I am going to be their mom, and this is going to be great. And I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and I naively thought... That's going to be us.

That's going to be us. And then we got married and everything changed. And I tried to force the dream in my head, because the dream in my head was a good dream. It was kids getting along. It was a husband and wife walking with God and serving God. But I forgot about the loss. And a couple years in, it dawned on me that a step family is founded on loss. A step family cannot occur without a death, divorce, or unpartnering occurring. And while remarrying and meeting Andy, the first godly man in my life, was a second chance at love. And I felt like God was giving me what I deserved because I forgave my ex-husband, I was walking with him, I was getting what I deserved. But I forgot that even though the remarriage is a second chance at love for him and I, it's a permanent reminder to our kids that their mom and dad will never be together again.

And what was started in love was a reminder of loss. Things can be moving along well and it will catch you by surprise because it's been going in a good direction. And I think that at times the marriage actually cements the reality of the situation for people. That's when it really starts to set in. I think it was said earlier today too, like when you move in, you're sharing a house and a bathroom now with maybe somebody you don't like. And so for us, the reality, just coming back from the honeymoon. You come back, you find out, okay, the six kids have been fighting, the step dog has peed on the rug, the whole deal. Right?

It's like, that's a metaphor. I'm glad we had that 48 hours together. Yeah, I've actually never thought about the step dog. Honestly, that is what they talked about is so wise. I wouldn't think about as a step mom coming in, the loss. The kids are experiencing incredible loss. And it's important to be there and sit there and to really realize what they have gone through. That would be hard as a step parent coming in when you're super excited. Exactly. And just imagine like you're excited to spend time with Dave, you know, hold his hand and kiss him on the cheek or smack him on the lips or whatever.

And in that moment when you're giving him a big old kiss, it sort of dawns on you. Oh, wait a minute. His kids are watching. My kids are watching. And this is evidence that mom and dad are never going to get back together again.

Right. How divided would you feel in that moment? Like, there's a part of you that wants to move towards your husband and enjoy that. And at the same time, you're maybe feeling a little guilty about it. You know, how odd is that dynamic? That's one of those push-pull dynamics that's fairly common in blended families, especially in the early years.

And it makes people just sort of think twice. Do I kiss him? Do I hold his hand? Do I show that affection in front of the children? Or is that somehow creating some angst for them? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I never even thought about it as, you know, a stepson to my stepmom. She probably was thinking that. And is this going to be a trigger for your son, your stepson or daughter?

Especially when you're so loyal to your mom. Yeah. And you're so – I've never considered – again, that's what blended is all about, is things we never think about are the reality for families that are trying to blend. And again, you're talking about, let's do this blended well. Yes. So it makes it even difficult.

Right. And so, Dave, I would kind of kick it back to you. It may not have been your experience, but I'm curious. If you saw affection between your dad and your stepmom, do you ever feel a little strange about that? You're listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Ron Deal on family life today. We'll hear Ron's response in just a sec, but first, let's face it, blending a family can be kind of complicated. But a little help can really go a long way, and that's why I'm so glad we've got Ron's new online course, Well Blended. It's available now at familylifetoday.com. Family Life Blended is an incredible ministry, and they've been guiding stepfamilies for years. And so now, they've pulled practical biblical solutions for blending a family and a marriage into a five-session online course for couples and blended families.

So if that's for you or you know a couple who would benefit from that, be sure to check out Well Blended by going to familylifetoday.com. All right, now back to Dave and what it felt like as a kid when his dad and stepmom showed affection for each other. I can see it right now in my mind's eye. I mean, this is 50 years ago on a boat on a lake with my dad and my stepmom and seeing them kiss as I was getting on the skis behind the boat. I mean, that's how real the visual is in my mind and thinking that is so weird. I don't remember seeing my mom and dad kiss.

I do remember seeing my stepmom and dad kiss. What did you feel? And it felt funny at first.

I can feel it. It was like, oh, they like each other. They have a romance in their life that I don't think my mom and dad, at least I didn't see that because I was seeing the loss, the end of something that now has been rebirthed in a new relationship. And it felt a little weird to me.

Like, am I supposed to celebrate this or am I mad about this? So you can imagine if your dad and stepmom happened to catch your face in that moment instead of a big smile. Mom and dad love each other.

It was maybe a question mark on your face, sort of a, huh, I'm not sure where to put this. How do I think about this? That's that push-pull moment where we have different levels of motivation towards being family. You as a child even have a different level of motivation towards the happiness of their marriage. And it's just an odd little circumstance. Now, for somebody listening right now who's in a Belinda family, they're thinking, okay, great, what do we do about that?

How do we fix how our kids feel about us being in love with each other? Well, obviously, you don't fix that on your timing. But what you can do is be sensitive to it, be aware of it.

And I can imagine somebody even turning if they catch a child's reaction and just saying it out loud. You know, right then I was kissing, you know, your mom. And I kind of think maybe you felt a little strange about that.

You know what? It's okay. That's all right. It's really all right. You know, kids in blended families often experience that.

So it's all right with me. I'm just curious, what were you feeling? And then you open a door to a conversation that's perhaps about loss, perhaps about, oh, I don't know, I just sort of feel weird. Or, you know, honestly, I never saw my parent kiss my other parent the way they just kissed you. And I'm not sure what to do with this. You know, I like you. I mean, you can have those sort of candid conversations with somebody.

Here's the thing. You're creating avenues for trust to be built. You're showing yourself to be someone who's not freaked out or skittish by a kid's reaction to you kissing your partner.

You're not fragile. And the child and you can talk about this. I love that, Ron, because I'm imagining many step-parents coming in could feel rejection. And when they feel rejection from the children, then they pull away.

And yes, they take it personally. And then there's strain in the relationships. So just having that conversation and if the kids are making a face or they're not happy about it, probably that whole thing is you can say to yourself, this isn't necessarily about you. They're struggling with their own things. I think that's really good, though, to bring it out in the open and to talk about it in a way that's making the kids feel like, hey, what are you feeling?

That could be really weird. Now, is that something you sort of cover in the online course to help? It is, as a matter of fact. In fact, we got another clip, Dave. Perfect lead-in.

Thanks for that. So in this well-blended course that people can do on their own from home, in this panel discussion with Andy and Heather, we also had another couple, Stanley and Myrna. And let's listen to them talk about because they felt that push-pull in their family, too. Well, I think one of the things that you maybe kind of alluded to is that you have to be persistent and consistent and intentional in trying to bring the other because we came together because we fell in love and the kids kind of came on as part of the package deal.

They did not have really a big voice in that. And so what do you do to along the way to bring everybody together? And one of the things we did in our family, and that is to really be intentional because our kids were older, you know, so it wasn't, you know, some families, what they do, they'll go on family vacation together. And when they're small, you can bring the kids along. But when they're older and on their own, they don't necessarily have to follow your lead there.

Good point. But one of the things we do is that we have like a family dinner every once a month there. So an intentional way for us to bring together.

Sometimes everybody show up, sometimes maybe one or two of the kids show up there, but we just a time for relaxing and bonding and basically trying to build those connection points. I'm hearing there, we call those rituals, points of connection. We're going to keep doing this.

This is part of the new us. And we're going to just keep doing that. I'm also hearing once a month.

That's not very often. It's hard to make progress, I would think. Yeah.

So was it slow going and how did you be OK with it being slow going? Well, like I said, when the kids are older like that, you have to kind of not trying to force anything. You want to be intentional, but also not force anything. So therefore, you want to make it available and try to make it so that they can come, per se, because you try to do something once a week and they're off living their own life.

It's going to be really tough for them to do that. Yeah. How about you guys, Hetzler's, you guys, any rituals that you've kind of built along the way, even if it by accident that have been helpful? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I came in with a lot of rituals and traditions with my kids and Andy did not. And my kids were protective.

They didn't really want to share some of those rituals with their step siblings. So we ended up, you know, I think that's one thing. So we really tried to be flexible and intentional. And so we've kind of created a lot of different traditions in our family. And the one thing that we've had to let go of is that holidays are when you're together, not just a date on the calendar. And so, you know, for Thanksgiving, we don't have the kids most Thanksgiving. So we do turkey bowling. And now we go, you know, during just the week of that last week in Thanksgiving, we pick a day and we go bowling with the kids.

And the first couple of years they complained and they didn't want to go. And now are we going? What day are we going? I want to make sure I schedule it and they look forward to it. And we do some things for their birthdays that are special. And we've just tried to learn to kind of holidays are just difficult, especially when you have a child who is missing another parent, whether they're deceased or they're just not in their life.

And so we're very sensitive. We invented this thing called Daughters Day for Mother's Day because my kids wanted to celebrate me. But my stepdaughters have a really hard time every Mother's Day because their mom's not there. And I never want to force them to celebrate me as their mom.

But now 10 years in, they do recognize me. And but we just celebrate all the women in our house. So Mother's Day, Andy celebrates all the women in the house. And for we just did the flip on Father's Day, we do Son's Day.

And so we celebrate all of our sons. And so we make it more about the people than the role. And we've just learned to have to be flexible on that. Wow. You know, as I hear that, I'm triggered, you know, it's like. Really?

In what way? Well, I mean, it was weird. I had a couple of thoughts. One was, and you know this, and I would get on a plane on Christmas morning every year to fly from Ohio, where my mom and I lived, to see my dad.

It was a ritual. And again, I could fly free. So I and I remember back in those days, we're talking the 60s, nobody's on the plane.

There's nobody flying. It was me and some flight attendants. And they took care of me because they felt sorry for me. What's this, you know, 10-year-old, nine-year-old, 11-year-old boy doing on a flight by himself on Christmas day, you know?

And I remember I really hated it because I went from a white Christmas in Ohio to palm trees, you know, and I didn't like palm trees for Christmas. But I do also, Ron, when I was listening to that, I also remember when I would go down at 14 and 15 years old, now I had a stepmom and she understood what I was going through and she made it good. I remember she was- Did she create new traditions? Yeah, she was full of joy. She had Christmas presents for me. We never talked about it, but I know now that she saw, man, this poor kid, it's Christmas day, and he has to travel from his mom to his stepmom and his dad. I'm going to make it a good memory. And it became a good memory.

But again, so many families don't even know how to navigate that whole thing. So that's what this is. This is what you're talking about, right? Yeah.

Well, I thought, Dave, too, it was really helpful to listen to the panel just to get ideas like, oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Love the creativity that they came up with and love that your stepmom, Dave, did the same thing. She found a way. She saw the need.

She had some compassion for this transition that you were forced into making on Christmas day of all days. Yeah. And even as I was listening to it, Ron, I'm thinking there are blended families who have never had this conversation until right now.

They just heard it on this broadcast. They're going to get the online course and it's going to force them to go, hey, there's something we need to talk about that we have never talked about. It just hit me like how valuable this can be for a blended family.

Yeah. And I love the thing about building little points of connection for people. Sometimes when the people hear, somebody's listening to us right now and they're realizing, oh, we have a tradition.

I just never thought of it in that way. And it happens every Sunday night, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. It happens every Thursday when we pick up the kids from school.

Or, you know, maybe it's every other week when the kids come back from the other house, we always go get ice cream. Yes, those are important points of connection and they begin to help children switch from one home to the next. And it's a reminder that, OK, I'm with these people and this is how life works in this home and these people care for me. And yeah, don't underestimate the power of those little moments to help further your family.

Now, a couple of things that I just had to comment on based on what we just heard. Remember Heather's comment, the kids complained at first. We held on to some of our old traditions that were single parent home traditions. And then we had to begin to create some new ones and the kids complained at first. And they just kept going, kind of a gentle persistence. Right. And then they started asking, when are we going to do that thing?

All right. Now, you know, this has meaning. It's become a tradition.

It's helpful for people. And it's a part of our new us. OK, listen to that, guys. That's how you develop a new family identity is you've got to have something that's us. And it's all those little things put together, of course, over time. But when it crystallizes and it becomes something we expect from one another, we hope for, we look forward to. OK. All right. Now I know where I belong and with whom I belong.

That's a really good moment in the life of a blended family. Yeah. Again, I guess you're taking me back, Ron. He always does this. It's his counseling.

He's putting me on the couch right now. No, listening to these families talk on this online course is reminding me of two things. One, what I lost, but also what I did gain in my stepmom and dad. Again, they're gone now and my mom's gone. But I'm thinking of the new families in this current reality that have something I never was offered. An online course, like you said earlier, conferences, books, podcasts, you name it, are available.

But man, just listen to this course. I just thought, man, what a blessing this is going to be for families. So, I mean, I'm just one guy, but I've lived it as the son in a blended family.

And I would just say, you don't want to miss this opportunity. This is going to spark some conversations that are literally going to change the future for your family. And Ron, once again, thank you for all you're doing, impacting so many. Thank you.

That's David Ann Wilson with Ron Deal on family life today. The new online course is called Well Blended. You can find out more and enroll today at familylifetoday.com. If you know anyone who needs to hear today's conversation, you can share it from wherever you get your podcasts.

And while you're there, it'd really help us out if you'd rate and review us. Well, we have Family Life's President David Robbins with us today, and we at Family Life are trying to make every home a godly home. And that very much includes blended families.

Isn't that right, David? Yeah, Meg and I were having lunch today with a couple who really through family life realized, you know, we both have been impacted by being part of blended families. And we had no clue that's what we were bringing in to our marriage. And they've been totally transformed and are some of the biggest cheerleaders of what Ron Deal and the Family Life blended team because it was so transformative in their lives and in their hearts and in their families. And what I love about the Family Life blended team is that they relentlessly pursued new ways of helping blended families. And there's this new blended course called Well Blended that the team has put together. It's engaging videos from different experts on blended families, and there's all sorts of things packed in the online course.

There's innovative activities to do with your family. There's thoughtful articles and audio segments to have little snippets for you to discuss and process. There's couples devotions to bring you closer, and there's even recommended resources to help you dig deeper. If you're prompted by listening today saying, I want some more, well, then this is a great resource for you.

Yeah, it really is. And again, you can get Well Blended at FamilyLifeToday.com to find out more and enroll. There are a number of Weekend to Remember events happening this weekend in Austin and Houston, Texas, as well as Orlando, Florida. We'd love it if you'd take a second and join us in prayer for those couples who will be attending. And next week, we'll get to hear the story of how Kim Anthony, a former world class gymnast, dealt with a secret world filled with drugs, violence and financial strain. David and Wilson are also going to be talking with recording artist and author Andrew Peterson about cultivating creativity and curiosity in our kids. We hope you get to worship in your local church this Sunday. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time 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.