FamilyLife Blended®

Ron L. Deal

A Line in the Sand

February 28, 2020

Here’s a dilemma: How do you find permanence in a relationship without making a permanent commitment?

 

You know what a wedding is, right? It’s the day a man and a woman draw a line in the sand and step over it together. I’ve heard some people argue that living with someone is essentially the same thing. Then I say, “Oh, so it won’t matter is you go ahead and get married then.” To which they start backpedaling pretty fast. People intuitively know that marriage is different. Paper may not make a difference, but commitment does. Do you want permanence? Choose permanence.

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Family meetings. It might be worth trying.   Some of you have already benefitted from my article on family meetings. This testimony from a stepdad explains why they can be so much more than just a meeting. “We started family meetings by necessity,” he told me. “We kept running into walls with the kids, so we decided to get together and talk about it. At first the meetings were all problem centered. But then we realized we could get proactive. Now, looking back it did more than solve problems. We figured out how to be a family.”
February 27, 2020
Stepparents, don’t just aim for love, earn their trust.   To have healthy relationships it really takes love and trust. One without the other doesn’t make for a solid relationship. Now, especially for adopted children, foster children, and stepchildren trust opens the door to love. Build trust by being emotionally and physically safe to be around; by showing them that you are committed, and you’ll never leave them; and by loving them on their worst day. And be trustworthy. Be a person they can trust, and you’ll be a person they can love.
February 26, 2020
Can you imagine—being deployed in a foreign country and losing your children back home?   Unfortunately, that has happened to our military personnel, but it shouldn’t happen anymore. There is now a law that prevents custody changes from occurring during deployment. But there are other things biological parents should think through: Registering your custody agreement in your current state and deciding how the stepparent should coordinate with the other household while you’re deployed. FamilyLife Blended, together with The Military Ready Stepfamily, offers support to military families.
February 25, 2020
Love languages are not set in stone.   In our book Building Love Together in Blended Families, Dr. Gary Chapman and I point out that your primary love language can shift. One stepparent noticed, “I thought I knew what their primary love language was, but it changed.” That is possible. Normal child and adolescent development can make a difference, but life stress and traumatic experiences can affect the primary love language. As people bond over time and trust develops, they can open more intimate places of their heart to one another.
February 24, 2020
Daddy, aren’t I your number one girl?   This 13-year old’s sweet question brought a bitter taste to her stepmother, Valerie, who was in the room. The girl’s father replied, “Baby, you’re daddy’s number one girl. But Valerie is my number one lady.” Valerie felt like he blew it, but later she realized his response was brilliant. Her stepdaughter needed reassurance from her dad—which she got—and she also needed to know that he cherished his wife as the Queen of his heart—which he declared.
February 21, 2020
Have you ever made a decision and discovered it wasn’t everything you hoped?   It is so easy to insert unrealistic hopes into our decisions and then experience disappointment. I keep hearing disappointment from parents in blended families because they thought marriage would repair or restore everybody’s losses. Well, it doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean marriage was the wrong decision. You just had misguided hope within the decision. A stepfamily is not a repaired first family; it’s a different family with its own challenges and rewards. Stress is not evidence of failure.
February 20, 2020
What do you do when your love associations differ?   In our book Building Love Together in Blended Families, Dr. Gary Chapman and I discuss how blended family love associations—meaning, the qualities or behaviors we associate with love—can be different on day one in a stepfamily. A stepchild may love their stepparent, but not respect their authority. A stepparent may love the children the same, but still find it awkward to hug their stepchild. When love associations collide, you get conflict. Recognize it takes time to merge definitions of love.
February 19, 2020
You know, life can be complicated. So, sometimes, we just need to dumb it down a little.   Dr. H Norman Wright is one of the most prolific Christian authors on the subjects of marriage, parenting, and family. He’s also been a personal mentor to me. In one daily dose of relationship wisdom he offers 20 simple words for stronger relationships. “Thank you.” “I was wrong, you were right.” “I am sorry.” “I love you.” “I forgive you,” and “Please forgive me.” No, words like these don’t fix everything. But they sure keep your heart in the right place. And that’s a good start.
February 18, 2020
Sometimes grandparents have a lot of wisdom.   My late grandmother's recipe for a Happy Marriage. 1 cup consideration and courtesy. 2 cups praise. 2 cups human kindness. 1 reasonable budget. 1 cup contentment. 1 cup blindness to the other’s faults. Flavor with frequent portions of recreation. Stir thoroughly and remove any specks of jealousy, temper, or criticism. Sweeten with lots of love; and keep warm with a steady flame of devotion. Never serve with a cold shoulder or hot tongue. And finally, add in 1 gallon faith in God and each other.
February 17, 2020
Relationship choices can be life or death.   On a FamilyLife Blended podcast author John Trent shared the Hebrew word for “life” carries the idea of movement. Moving toward the other person gives them and your relationship life. The Hebrew word for death means “to depart, step away.” When we emotionally move away from someone we bring a little death to the relationship. It's easy to move toward someone emotionally when you feel connected, but doing so when you feel hurt is tough. Don't add death to the equation. Instead, choose life.
February 14, 2020
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Receive our monthly Strengthening Stepfamilies newsletter as well as the occasional email updating you on stepfamily events and resources.

About FamilyLife Blended®

FamilyLife Blended® provides  biblically-based resources that help prevent re-divorce, strengthen stepfamilies, and help break the generational cycle of divorce.

About Ron L. Deal

Ron L. Deal is the Director of blended family ministries at FamilyLife®, and is the author/coauthor of the books The Smart StepfamilyThe Smart Stepdad, The Smart Stepmom, Dating and the Single Parent, and The Remarriage Checkup. Ron voices the FamilyLife Blended short feature and is one of the most widely read authors on stepfamily living in the country. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist who frequently appears in the national media, including FamilyLife Today® and Focus on the Family, and he conducts marriage and family seminars around the countryRon and his wife, Nan, have been married since 1986 and have three boys.

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