Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family's weekend broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey.

Guest (Female): What do you mean we don't talk anymore?

Guest (Male): When's the last time we sat down and just had a conversation?

Guest (Female): For crying out loud, what do you think we're doing now? I could be watching the game, I could be playing the computer.

Guest (Male): Watch your silly game, okay!

Guest (Female): Fine!

Guest (Male): Alone!

Guest (Female): I usually do!

John Fuller: Well, maybe you and your spouse know conflict like that all too well, like you've memorized that pattern and those habits and the dance steps. And every time you have a disagreement or a tough issue to navigate, there you are again. If you can relate, we have some hope and practical help for you today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and thanks for joining us.

Jim Daly: You know, how many couples have these disagreements and then hours later, days later, you go, "What was our problem? What were we talking about? What were we fighting about?" You can't remember. You can remember the intensity of it, but often times you don't even remember what the noun of the trouble was, you know, what was the subject?

And that's because we're reacting out of a dysfunction somewhere that we learned. It's a trigger, and we're pushing each other's buttons. That's one of the things I am way too good at with Jean, at pushing that button. And I feel bad about it, but it's almost like a reflex. When she says something to me, I just go bing and then boom, she reacts to that and then off to the races we go.

Now you would think after being married 39 years we'd have some of this figured out. And we do, and we're getting better, but it still comes up. It just pops its ugly head and then we gotta say, "I'm sorry," or "Forgive me," which is all good. But why not not go there in the first place? And today we're going to give you some tools to be able to recognize those patterns in your life and then how to maybe respond with the adult brain that God has given us.

John Fuller: Yeah, Ron and Nan Deal are here. Ron has joined us a number of times for a variety of conversations. He's a marriage and family therapist, probably best known for his work with stepfamilies. His wife Nan is a former teacher and they speak together at marriage conferences. And together they've written a terrific resource called *The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself*.

Jim Daly: Ron, welcome back. Nan, welcome for the first time. It's great to have you.

Nan Deal: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Jim Daly: It's always a little more difficult when the spouse shows up for this kind of interview, right? Because we sound so brilliant as husbands or as a wife. But when we're together, it's accountability time. I think Jean might say, "Yeah, you could write the book *The Mindless Marriage*." Jean would never say that, but I might think that she's thinking that. But it's so true.

Why, let's start right there. Why us, mature Christians walking with the Lord a long time, how do we still fall prey to these kind of traps that we should be like Paul says renewing our mind day after day? I've been a Christian for 8,000 days of my life, maybe more, and sometimes I still don't know the right way to respond.

Ron Deal: We have learned so much about how the brain, body, and soul works in the last 20 years. Neuroscience has taught us a tremendous amount about the brain and how it functions. You mentioned 39 years, Nan and I have been married 39 years. We tell our audiences we're just beginning to figure this thing out, like why has it taken so long?

But I think it's the same reason why most people listening or watching right now go to church on Sunday, hear truth, and walk out going, "That was for me," and nothing changes. Because there are certain things that are set neurologically within the brain. It is our mind that needs to tell our brain how to behave.

Now think about that for a minute. Paul's talking about renewing your mind. It's your mind that is above your brain, but there's a physicality to your brain that develops neurological pathways that get set. You said a minute ago Jean might say something and you reflex. That is exactly the right word. Your brain has a reflex, and in a nanosecond you go from zero to 100 because literally what's happened is something in the prefrontal cortex has been triggered by a pain that you've experienced and your midbrain takes over.

It's sort of like your thinking brain goes offline, your midbrain takes over and all it knows to do is fight or flight. And as long as your mind lets your brain go there, you will do the same thing you did when you were 6 or 15 or 25 or 50 or 60. But the beautiful thing is you don't have to end there.

Nan Deal: Scripture is clear: the flesh wants what the flesh wants, but we're asked and called to walk in the spirit, which takes a lot of self-control.

Jim Daly: Yeah, it does. Now you guys have written this book together and probably the best way to demonstrate some of these things is by your example.

Ron Deal: We have lots of them.

Jim Daly: So let's go to that moment when the bottom was dropping out of your marriage and you felt something. Describe what was going on, what was the phrase or what was said that caught your attention.

Nan Deal: I think I showed up with suitcases and I said, "It's either you or me. I am done." I was just done with that cycle and that dance.

Jim Daly: Did you even understand it at that time what was happening?

Nan Deal: I didn't understand what was happening but our boys were preteen at the time. This is 2007 by the way. I was tired of chasing after my husband who was chasing after so much in ministry and helping so many other people and here we are and I have these three young about to be three young men. It was just the same thing and it just kept cycling and I kept responding and he kept responding. It was like we were 20-something years in and it was like, "It's either you or me or get us some help basically."

Jim Daly: Wow. I mean that's pretty dramatic.

Nan Deal: He's a therapist. I'm like, obviously you can't fix this, so get us some help to help fix this.

Jim Daly: Did you ever say to Ron, "Ron, you're looking at this stuff all day. Why can't you apply it in our relationship?"

Ron Deal: Absolutely. And what I want to say is, and I think most married couples listening can relate to this, it's not like it's black or white. It's not like your relationship is all great or all bad. As a matter of fact, most of us, and to that point in our marriage, I would say we were among those who had lots of good, lots of positive. There had been lots of growth and change and I had been working on some of me and family of origin stuff. But at the end of the day, there were still those dysregulated reactive moments that were really, really bad.

Jim Daly: How did you respond with Nan's declaration of "I need more"?

Nan Deal: I truly believe it was now looking back Holy Spirit moment because he didn't bow up like he usually does and get defensive. He was like, "I'll do whatever it takes."

Jim Daly: It was more serious for some reason.

Nan Deal: Yeah. He got down on his knees and said, "I'll do whatever it takes." I don't know what I said that night or how I said it, but you knew I meant business that night.

Ron Deal: Yeah, I was deeply convicted in that moment. And she started saying, "Get us some help," and I said, "Okay, who do I trust?" And there were a couple of people and they were unavailable.

Nan Deal: You did come at me with "Terry has a two-year waiting list. I don't think he'll see us," and I said, "Call him right now," and it was like 9 p.m. And we were in his office the next day. He lived in our community and I had a deep respect for Dr. Hargrave. So we ended up in his office the next morning. And that too had to be God's intervention.

Jim Daly: So this is Dr. Terry Hargrave who taught you this modality of marriage.

Ron Deal: That's right.

Nan Deal: And here's how that went down. Dr. Terry Hargrave and I'm married to a marriage and family therapist. I stood at the doorway and I said, "No psychobabble stuff right here, the two of you. I want you to land the plane with me, no funny business between the two of you and I want to be heard."

Jim Daly: I can see it in your face right now, Nan. You were serious.

Nan Deal: And Terry said, "Okay, go ahead." And I laid it all out there.

Jim Daly: And then the next thing was so beautiful. It's what you've been waiting for when Terry said what to Ron?

Nan Deal: He nailed him. He nailed him to the wall and I got to watch it. This is really important how it came down. My husband broke down.

Jim Daly: What did Terry say?

Ron Deal: It was the beginning of really a humbling moment. He was looking at Nan, she had just talked for 20 minutes about all her pain. And he looked at her with a simple little reflective statement, but he was talking to me.

He was looking at her, but he was talking to me. And he said, "Well Nan, what I think you're telling me is that the reason Ron threw you under the bus is because God told him to." Wow. And I instantly knew God would never tell me to do that. That I had been justifying some things out of my own needs and I don't know why, but it's wrong and I felt a deep, deep conviction. They kept talking and I was just sitting in my little space going, "Something's wrong and I gotta deal with me." And that was the beginning of a humbling process. It certainly involved Nan as well. It wasn't just me that needed it.

Nan Deal: He said something very poignant to me as well. He looked me straight in the eye and he said, "If you will allow God to heal all of this brokenness in you, it'll be the most beautiful thing that will come out of your life."

Jim Daly: And what did you feel inside when he said that? "It's going to be impossible" or "Okay, I'm willing"?

Nan Deal: I had no idea what he was saying at that moment because I had so much brokenness and I thought I could take care of it and not allow God. I couldn't trust God with it. It was too much from family to Ron and I just sat there and went, "I don't know," and I didn't know what he was saying to me till years later.

Jim Daly: Wow. You know, we have something called Hope Restored, it's a marriage intensive, we talk about it often. And the one question on the intake side when these couples are hurting desperately like where you guys were at and they start the application process. We'll ask them one question: Do you believe God can work a miracle in your marriage?

If they say no, they don't get in because what we have found is that basic ounce of hope is what's required. If you're already in a place where not even God can work a miracle, you don't have a chance. But if you can say, and it usually goes like this and Nan you'll be able to relate to this, "Yeah, God's the only one because my husband's such a jerk." But that's hope, that's saying God I think can work that miracle. And that's the difference. And that's where you guys were at.

Let me ask you, Ron, people listening, we got the whole spectrum, people that respect a PhD in psychology and then people that are theologically rooted and saying, "I don't know that psychology delivers that much, it could be psychobabble," exactly what you said, Nan. But Dr. Hargrave introduced you to this restoration therapy which really is rooted in 2nd Corinthians 5, I believe. So connect that for the skeptic, the listener, the viewer who's going, "I don't know about that." But the study of science is really the study of God's creation when it gets down to it. People will manipulate that, but when we match these things, which of course Dr. Dobson did as a PhD in child development and so many who have come behind him now, they're both Christian and experts in these areas. You can pick up patterns that God has created.

Ron Deal: Absolutely. All truth is God's truth. We know medical science truth that we all live by every single day when you go to the doctor and he or she says do this, don't do that, take this, don't take that. We're trusting a lot in medical science. And is there a God behind all of that that makes all of that make sense? Absolutely.

I think the social sciences are very similar to that. They will always ultimately, biblical truth is the ultimate truth. It will always point us in the right direction. And any other truth that's discoverable will line up ultimately with biblical truth. That's why I said what I said earlier about we've learned more about the mind and the brain and the distinctiveness there and how it works. It's adding more layers to our understanding of the flesh as Nan said. In Romans 7, Paul said, "Why do I keep on doing the things that I don't want to do?"

Jim Daly: I'm so glad he wrote that.

Ron Deal: Me too! Thank you, Paul. Seriously. That's one of the best lines in scripture for human beings. It's the human experience. So here's a guy who knows better but can't quite get to the living better. There's a gap there. Absolutely there's a gap. What is that gap and why does that gap exist?

Well, we know a little bit more about that gap now when it comes to spiritual walk, discipline and walking with God and having self-control to live and obey the way he's asked us to obey. My flesh constantly, and part of that is my brain, constantly wants to go back to what it knows. And those are old patterns that are really deep-rooted. They're neurological at this point in my life, neurological.

Jim Daly: And that's that restoration therapy. Give us that quick definition.

Ron Deal: Restoration therapy really integrates a number of things that you guys have talked about many times on this program. Attachment theory, what we know about how we work in terms of relationships, how we connect with other people.

Jim Daly: And you learn this as a child mostly.

Ron Deal: Exactly. And it sets those styles in us that then pour out of us as an adult. But the question is, what do we do about it? And what Dr. Hargrave's restoration therapy does is take all of that know-how and then merge it with New Testament theology around your old self and your new self.

If there is one thing that we ought to be teaching and preaching in church on a regular basis, it's this reoccurring theme in the New Testament about: It is my job as a follower of Jesus to take off my old self, the part of me that is not like Christ. I'm listening to the spirit, I'm trying to merge my body, soul, mind processes along with the spirit so that I can live out what he has called me to do.

There's the gap between my flesh and living by the spirit, right? This is over and over: Galatians 5, Philippians 4, Colossians 3, Ephesians 4, and 2nd Corinthians you mentioned. Over and over: take off the old self and put on the new. It just turns out there's quite a journey to do that. And Dr. Hargrave has figured out a process, a system that really helps us navigate that space, become less and less like our old flesh and more and more like Christ.

And when I do that in the context of my marriage in the moments when I'm triggered and all my bad self comes out, if I can put on self-control, I can bring a better me to the next moment in my marriage and it's transformative for relationships.

John Fuller: And Ron, in the book you use the analogy of being on a trail and you talk about this pain cycle and liken it to finding a snake on the trail.

Jim Daly: A rattlesnake!

John Fuller: I saw a pretty serious snake on a trail one day in Arkansas of all places. What were you thinking of when you wrote that?

Ron Deal: Well, I was probably reacting the way you were reacting. You know, John, when you see a rattlesnake. We were walking through a canyon with all of our kids on this occasion. You don't have to form a committee and say, "We have a rattlesnake. What should we do about it?" No, your midbrain kicks in.

It's God's gift to us this fight-or-flight reactivity that says, "Danger, danger, Will Robinson, back up, get away, protect your kids." You don't have to pause and ponder and your brain will take care of you. That's the good news. The bad news is that in life, my brain doesn't know the difference between a rattlesnake and Nan's criticism.

Jim Daly: They both bite.

Ron Deal: They both bite! And my brain doesn't know the difference. All it knows is danger, danger. What do you do, Ron? Well, in my case, and there's four different ways people respond in fight-or-flight at that point in time, for me, I go into either blame or defensiveness or control. Either I'm going to control her, I'm going to perform and get better at something so that she has no reason to be upset with me, or I'm going to counter-blame and somehow make it to be about her.

Now all of that stuff that I do, here's the crazy thing guys: it's all an effort to restore peace within me and between us in our usness as we like to call it. That really doesn't make sense and it's not helpful. Rattlesnake, criticism, I need to defend myself and prove to her that she's wrong about me. So now I'm arguing her into liking me, which never works, thank you very much.

And now she's even more upset because I'm not listening, I'm not considering what she had to say and we escalate our negative behavior. Am I getting to peace? No. I'm getting to more conflict. And it's because my dysregulation triggers her dysregulation and there we go, we're off and running. If I don't learn how to manage that nanosecond between rattlesnake and my response, things get worse.

Jim Daly: When you say that it sounds kind of ridiculous, I mean that very respectfully, but it is the mechanism. We can't distinguish that. When we're talking about slowing down or taking a step back emotionally, how do you help yourself from not noticing the difference?

Ron Deal: You have to understand what I normally do. One of the beautiful things about this book and Dr. Hargrave's work is that you are going to do some exercises and you're going to map and sequence: what are the triggers for me, what's the pain points, and what does it mean to me and what do I do with it? That's called coping.

Once you see that, it doesn't mean you can instantly change it. You need to have a mechanism, we call that the four steps, where you learn how to talk through creating a new response instead of just doing the same old stuff. And all of that is to help you self-regulate your emotions. The biblical word is self-control! I gotta put on self-control when I feel rattlesnakes in my marriage.

Here's the crazy thing: most of us spend our entire life trying to get the spouse who is the rattlesnake, so you're the one who has to change. And now I go with some agenda of trying to fix her. The subtitle of this book is *Understanding and Managing Yourself*. It's my reactivity that I am in charge of, not her reactivity. And that is a game changer moment that helps couples who often get caught in this escalation to begin to unwind it.

Nan Deal: I was triggered yesterday coming here. I was in pain. Coming here with my husband who has, this is his seventh time here. In the previous times coming here, Ron would be a week in his head before he'd come here. Then he'd come here and he'd do his thing, unavailable while he's here, maybe other meetings after that, outflow after that, and then as he comes home, he's still in his head about being here because it might lead to something else to something else.

So coming here is a trigger of pain, abandonment. Where are you? And we're coming here and I'm thinking, I had to be very mindful on the plane as I'm touching down and he's talking about well we'll do this and Jim will say this and he's doing all the things and I'm thinking, I'm feeling something rising in me. I'm feeling triggered. And I had to stop and go, "Okay, what am I feeling? What would old Nan normally do?" Old Nan would normally really get critical and "Oh I know exactly what you'll do while you're here" or blame or whatever, take control of the situation.

I had to stop, pray, get grounded and say, "Okay, Holy Spirit I need some help here. I know you're my helper. I normally would do this but I know that I'm God's child, I know that you've given us this opportunity together and I know that I can walk this out with humility and with the spirit self."

Jim Daly: The key there I'm hearing you Nan is you have to do this probably several times a day because of that triggering mechanism. It's not just once in a while. These are patterns that we've developed. And I think as a couple how to handle that together. But it's a pattern and I'm sure I have my patterns and I'm less likely to see those as I am to see hers, right? Is that part of the deal?

Ron Deal: Exactly. You're very in tune picking up on their problem. Exactly. We are super in tune with the speck in the other person's eye, Matthew 7, but rarely do we notice that log in our own and take responsibility for it.

I want to compliment her. Listen to what she went through. Listen to the internal: what's the truth, I know what the pain is, I know the truth, and I'm going to choose to respond differently in this situation. Wow. Right? By the time she and I began to process, yeah this is sort of like coming back to Ron's lover. By the time we began to process that, she's not coming at me as a rattlesnake. She's coming gentle, she's coming soft, she's talking through, she's taking ownership of.

And by the way, we've spent many years working through all this pain together. So I'm quick to go, "Yeah, I totally see how this is a space that's difficult for you and I get that and I see that." And I'm over here saying, "Yeah, I've been trying to manage me and not be super control guy and come and perform like I always used to do." By the way, I was chasing my identity in my work and so to be able to relax and come here and just say, "Yeah, we're just having a conversation with Jim and John. This is not a big deal." It puts me in a different place. See how we're both understanding and managing ourselves and that allows us to then bring a better us to one another. It's a game changer.

Jim Daly: Well and some of it is understanding the why. She needs a space in our case to be able to express her concerns. And it just seems to be that moment and I've seen that pattern, but obviously there's not enough time in the rest of our day or something's going on that this is the place where. And for you Nan, that's also true. And this has been so good. It really has. Thank you for being with us and I do want to come back next time and pick up the conversation to give people more insight into what you've discovered.

Isn't it exciting for 20, 30-somethings who are married to say, "Hey, let's learn from these older couples' mistakes," right? But in the meantime, get a copy of this great book, *The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself*. And to all of us mismanaged people, amen. It's our goal here at Focus to equip you and your spouse, to give you those tools that you need to have a wonderful healthy thriving in Christ marriage. And I think this is one of the best resources on that marriage topic.

These resources do cost money, so we depend on your partnership to help us reach more husbands and wives with this good news message. And according to our research, more than a half a million marriages have benefited from Focus resources just in the last 12 months. I'm really proud of that. I mean, that's reach and impact that we're doing together. And if I could ask you to consider a gift to the ministry, that's how it gets done. The power of the Holy Spirit and funded by friends of the ministry is how we change lives. So let's do it together. Let's save more marriages.

John Fuller: Make a donation as you can, either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift and we'll say thanks by sending the book to you. And you can donate, get the book and also connect with one of our counselors when you call 800-232-6459. That's 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/weekend. And thanks for joining us today for this episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

And it was just the same thing and it just kept cycling and I kept responding and he kept responding and it just was what were we 20-something years in and it was like, "It's either you or me or get us some help basically." Wow. I mean that's pretty dramatic. Yeah, he's a therapist. I'm like, "Obviously you can't fix this, so get us some help to help fix this."

Well that's Nan Deal describing some of the pain points in her marriage to her husband Ron and they're with us again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to unpack a little more and to help us understand how we can get to a better space in our own marriages. I'm John Fuller and thanks for joining us.

Jim Daly: I think after yesterday's program it made me think about the speck in the eye and I've never really thought about that verse in the context of marriage, but it's glaringly obvious. I mean, who's closer to you than your spouse? So that speck in the eye analogy that Jesus gave us in Matthew, which is "look at that log in your own eye before you look at the speck in your spouse's eye." I'm saying it that way for that application. But isn't that so true that we're so quick to see the other person's faults before we see our own? Right, and I don't know why, but we tend to think it's, "I'm fine, it's them, they're the problem."

How about this? If you can just get your act together, we'd have a great marriage. I mean, I think at some point in our 39 years, I think I may have thought of that but I don't want to admit it. But we've had a great discussion last time with Ron and Nan Deal and we're going to continue that discussion today.

And we covered concepts about how we trigger one another. And I did confess at that point that I'm really good at pushing those buttons. And that's probably true for many married couples. We just don't get off that craziness and we keep doing that. When she hurts me, I push that button. That's how I get my reward. And it's not a smart way to do your marriage. And we're going to continue today to talk about how to have a better marriage by loving one another.

John Fuller: Yeah, and the book that forms the basis for our conversation is *The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself*. And of course, we have copies of that book here at the ministry.

Jim Daly: Ron and Nan, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Good to have you for day two.

Nan Deal: Thank you.

Ron Deal: Thank you.

Jim Daly: I couldn't ask this question because of time constraints last time, but I do want to pick up with this one. In the book you relate to those feelings we have and the way that we misinterpret communication from our spouse based on what we learned reflexively as a child, whatever that might be. And the book goes into great detail for people to be able to self-analyze and say, "Yes, that's me. This is why I react when you push me. I feel insecure, I feel abandoned," as you mentioned last time Nan. But in that regard, it's not true. What we're experiencing is not the truth. And that is so critical. The scripture is full of that example: know what is true. And we know that through knowing scripture, knowing the Lord, loving the Lord. But tie that in a bow for me.

Ron Deal: What I would say is there is a truth. To me, my big pain point is "I'm not good enough, I'm inadequate." And I'm trying to outrun that label in my own head and in my wife's head and anybody else's head 24/7 unless I come to see what the capital T truth is. There is a little truth that sometimes I do feel inadequate and sometimes I've really messed up whether it was childhood or marriage now. Yeah, that's true. But what does that mean? Does that add up to I'm not okay as a person, that my worth and value is gone? No, it doesn't.

I'll never forget the day I realized, here's that capital T truth: God whispering to me. Nan could be disappointed with me in any given moment, and it does not mean it's the end of our marriage. It doesn't mean it's the end of me. It doesn't mean that that adds up to my worth and value. And that I could actually admit that I was disappointing to her and it wasn't going to be the end of the world.

Now I know that sounds really funny to say out loud, but for some reason, somewhere in my history, I kind of decided that's what's at stake here. And as long as I live with that hypersensitivity, then any disappointment is a monumental moment and I am going to fight against it as much as I can. Well that just brings out the worst in me and things spin in all the wrong directions.

So for me to be able to go, "No. What is the truth? God tells me my worth and value is in Jesus Christ, that's number one. Okay, with that, I also know Nan loves me. And she can be upset or irritated in any given moment. That's not the end of us. We'll find our way through. Just relax Ron." Like all of that sounds simple. But when your brain neurologically sets off on a pathway of doing what it knows to do, reacting how it knows to react, it is not simple to slow that thing down and go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's the truth and how do I live out of it?"

Jim Daly: Ron, for us, let me speak from the husband's side because this is what I know best. There was a day for you where you missed a couple of Nan's phone calls and you started to fret like she's going to accuse me of being distracted. Fill in those blanks and then Nan tell us and this is healthy how you processed it and where your head was at.

Ron Deal: So if anybody who saw and listened yesterday will know that me overworking is part of the things that I do to cope with feeling inadequate. When I miss those calls, I'm thinking, "Uh oh, here we go, she's going to be mad, she's going to walk in the door, she's going to unload and I need to get prepared for that."

And then I remembered my four steps and I said, "Wait a minute, that's the old Ron who's fretting and anxious and upset and already guarded and already defending myself before she's ever even come back. What's the truth? Well, the truth is maybe I might have made a mistake, maybe I missed. Or the truth is she's not going to leave me even if she is disappointed. So calm down Ron. Let's give her and here's another truth: Nan's growing, we're changing, our usness is different than it used to be. Let's give this a chance to see how it plays out and be more calm about it." Sure enough, she walked in the door.

Jim Daly: And let's give it to Nan.

Nan Deal: And I was like, "Hey!"

Ron Deal: She was nice, sweet.

Jim Daly: How are you?

Ron Deal: Not only that but you had earbuds in, right? And you weren't that concerned about Ron's day.

Nan Deal: No, I wasn't that concerned. And my triggers are abandonment. And so not him picking up or even answering a text or a call is "Oh he's too busy, everything else is more important than me."

Jim Daly: But you didn't experience it then.

Nan Deal: I did not experience it because I'd been working on me and being mindful of me. I can see now that day we went into Dr. Hargrave's office and I saw him with a sentence humble Ron. I really in that moment thought, "Yay, he has fixed him," when in fact there was so much in me that I needed to trust God with and I needed to work on me.

So in that moment walking in was after months of waiting, "Wait a minute, he could be busy. He could be really doing something very important and was it really important what you needed and if you really needed him you could have said, 'I've fallen and I can't get up.' I mean you could have given him a different message." But it's more of a mindfulness in me of "He's changing and you can change your response in this moment."

Jim Daly: Nan, you then started to experience something with your son, both of you. But it really devastated you as it should obviously. What happened with Connor and what was your reaction over the long haul?

Nan Deal: Well, we saw Terry in 2007 and our son died of a MRSA staff infection after being sick for just 10 days which came out of nowhere. He was 12. And that was in '09. So truly the Lord's provision being in Terry's office and working with him for two years set a stage for then the rug just was completely pulled out from underneath us. And then at that point, Terry was just our grief counselor. And so very grateful for the time he spent with us just caring and hearing our grief. He was so kind with it, wasn't he?

Ron Deal: Absolutely.

Nan Deal: But in the beginning Ron and I grieved very much the same. And he never left me. It was we were thrust together. We had the same sorrows, we had the same anger, we had the same doubt and disillusionment with faith and God and what has just happened. And we were saying why together.

Then about four years in, I saw him journeying to some resolution so to speak as he was reading Job and he had some not just it's over, but some peace about it and some surrender with his grief. And I was still just feeling so abandoned, so abandoned, so lost.

But you have to understand, I poured myself into my boys. I feel like it was my identity and Connor and I had such a sweet and special relationship. He was the one that had my back. All three of my boys adore me but Connor just had my back and I just had something special.

Jim Daly: And that's good.

Nan Deal: It truly was. And he was the glue in between the boys too, so there was not only my loss and Ron's loss, but it just completely devastated our family and our other two children. Our youngest is sleeping beside our bed for two years, our oldest is 14 at the time and who wants to be the 14-year-old brother who has a brother that's gone? I mean, going to middle school like that? Middle school's hard enough. And so I'm navigating all of that and just feeling like, "Where are you God in this?"

As you said, I feel like my faith wasn't as strong as it is now. And so there were just avenues and ways with numbing with alcohol and prescription medication that was my way of coping for about a decade.

Jim Daly: That's big.

Nan Deal: It's true.

Jim Daly: It's huge.

Nan Deal: It's huge in the grieving community.

Jim Daly: And again I so appreciate that because people are there. These are good Christian people but that's probably one of the most difficult things somebody can experience in life. My brother, my oldest brother Mike and his wife had that similar loss with cancer with their son.

Nan Deal: I'm sorry.

Jim Daly: But it it happens. And just that, I mean it's like, "Lord," you know you start doing the equation right? I've lived my life for you. Why would you take my son or my daughter from me? And it's not a healthy place to be. We don't have those answers.

Nan Deal: Right. And I feel like I was doing it well because also, this is the prideful part of me, I feel like I was doing it right because I didn't have that growing up. So I'm going to do it right. And you know what? We were great. Of anything in our marriage, parenting was great. We just connected and did it together in tandem. It was just a beautiful thing and I just feel like we had this Norman Rockwell painting.

We truly had a golden retriever and the boys would hug each other and kiss each other before they'd go to bed at night and Connor was reading to us out of his chapter book and things were beautiful like that with the boys. We were on the cusp of the preteen. So everything was still really sweet. It was a sweet season and we prayed for them and prayed about them. And we were taking them to church. I feel like I was checking off all those boxes, Lord. I was doing A and B and C and really, and he was a healthy kid. It came out of nowhere and we never saw it coming.

Jim Daly: There's two questions here. I think one Ron is for you seeing Nan suffer in that way and like she described you're coming to this place saying, "Okay Lord, I feel like I'm through it, I'm moving forward," but Nan is in trouble. Drinking and even prescription drugs like you said for about 10 years. What are you thinking at that point?

Ron Deal: It was really difficult. Safety in a relationship is everything and the more she numbed, the less safe things got in our relationship. Some of those old triggers are now super sensitive. I'm trying to manage me and trying to figure out how to love and be in connection with her and be supportive and at the same time not liking how she would react and respond.

And by the way, I didn't even fully understand the depth of it. She would wait till I would go to sleep and then she'd get out a second bottle of wine. So by day, things were sort of okay, but by night things got really difficult. It was hard.

Nan Deal: In his defense, and I was lying to everybody. I was lying to all my physicians to keep the prescription medication going. A lot of that kind of had the same effect as alcohol just to numb the feelings. The anxiety medication. And then it was always at night and as soon as he'd go to bed, and he's a deep, deep sleeper, and we're empty nest, my boys are off to college and living their life and it really took on a life of its own. It truly took on a life of its own.

I lied to a lot of people. As I've come out with this, I've had dear friends going, "Why didn't you tell me?" My sisters, sister-in-law, family, friends. I feel like it was the enemy's way of isolating me. Absolutely. I truly was in bondage with it because there were multiple times I tried to get off of it and I had so much withdrawal that scared me.

But also he would be whispering to me all the time. Like I'd think maybe I should go to rehab. And I remember thinking, "Yeah, go to rehab and your husband's just started this huge ministry. You've moved to Little Rock and here you go. Oh, you'll ruin that for him." I mean the lies of the enemy. And I tell you all of that from childhood, me taking care of things myself, taking care of self with marriage and then that was my way of taking care of this grief and it just became chains. Bondage.

Jim Daly: You know that scripture John 10:10. Some people might not know it, Christians who read the word know this one. This was the first scripture that a family who gave me a Bible when I was 15 wrote in there: John 10:10. And I read it, and it's a little freaky.

Nan Deal: Scarry.

Jim Daly: That the thief, Satan, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That's an example of it, how that isolation and that's exactly what he does. Each and every day we live he's trying to do that to us as five-year-olds, as 15-year-olds, as 25-year-olds, all the way up to 70, 80-year-olds. It's his mission every day to take us out.

I need to ask that question: how did this come right? Because people are maybe even in that spot. We did a broadcast not long ago with a woman who was in a very similar situation as you. Alcohol became her night beverage to cope. How did you rectify that? How did you come out of that dark place?

Nan Deal: It was COVID. COVID was so good to me. Ron had gone on a five-day working trip and had caveated it with, "Hey, I'm going to be going here and here and here and I may not be accessible to you," which triggered the abandonment and the pain. I went on a five-day bender. He was gone for five days.

He comes home. I'm teaching at the time and we are sequestered. Like the kids are saying, "Mrs. Deal will I see you?" and I'm like, "Well I don't know," and you know, school shut down. Anytime he traveled, boy I had somebody for lunch and breakfast and Nan would take it on herself to just have things in place so I wasn't alone.

COVID stripped all of that away. COVID stripped everything. The restaurants were closing, friends were saying, "I can't come for the weekend," and he was gone, he came in and he had a look on his face of I mean I had hit bottom. I'd gone on a bender that weekend, probably 52 calls and so many terrible texts that I sent him unbeknownst to me, not knowing that I had done it. Very angry, bitter.

And he comes home and he goes, "Who are you and what is happening?" And I knew in that moment that I was probably losing him. But I had already looked in the mirror and said, "I don't even know who you are. You're losing yourself." I had already lost myself.

And we get up that Monday and he's like, "Hey, I gotta get on a Zoom and figure this Zoom thing out and this pandemic thing with my team." Which kind of was triggering. But I was like, "Okay, I had nothing. What are you going to do with kindergarteners at that point?" I mean, they're just saying, "Just stay at home." I have nothing. My boys are gone. Ron's in there, he's gone. It is a pandemic and I am completely isolated.

But I go into our guest bedroom and I think, "Oh, I'll do yoga. That might help." And I lay down on that mat and couldn't get up off from that mat for about two hours. It was my bottom. I cried for two hours like I used to cry over my son. I was at the end of me and I cried out to the Lord and I said, "I cannot do this anymore. I have nothing." I literally cried uncle and I said, "If if you would have me, I want to do it your way."

Jim Daly: Wow.

Nan Deal: And I felt that peace that surpasses all understanding that day. It was as if he had taken his hands and completely wiped me off and I got up off that mat and I was like, "I am going to do it your way." I did not stop the medication right away, but that night I had no alcohol and I had not one withdrawal.

Jim Daly: You know Nan, the scripture in Psalms it says he's close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit. The right question for us is: run there! Surrender. Humility. Because that's where you're going to meet the Lord, even in that pain. I mean your tears are real. But isn't it amazing of like Romans 8:28, the good that God brought from your bottoming out?

Nan Deal: I'm grateful for that day, March 17th, 2020. I mean, remember it forever because that was really when it happened. And I really feel as if he was like, "I've been waiting for this all your life for you to let go of the reins. Okay now we can do this." And that moment that Terry said, "If you'll allow God to heal all of the brokenness, it'll be the most beautiful thing that will come out of you." I get it now. I get it now and I want to bring God glory because I know there are other people like.

Jim Daly: Oh, you're talking to them right now and people are in that spot hurting in one way or the other. And there's many more things to say here Ron. I think one of the things to tie a bow around this is a concept of the peace cycle. We've talked about the pain cycle, I think this would be a great place to talk about the peace cycle.

Ron Deal: The pain cycle for her was in abandonment, run and escape. The peace cycle for her is no, with God I can face my pain. I can move toward Ron rather than run away from Ron. I'm working on me, she's working on her, we have a totally different dynamic between us. We are far from perfect, we are still working on us every single day, there's a humility decision to be made.

And yet it just brought us to a totally different place. I will comment: that was day one of her recovery. She got into a 12-step group, kept going. We work with a parents who have lost a child group. We are still giving, receiving, exploring, learning. Every day we get triggered, every day we have an opportunity to deal with the log in our own eye and manage us. And the Lord is doing some really amazing things.

Jim Daly: I think it's great. Nan, you're my hero. Seriously, and I chokes me up, that vulnerability is good because people look at Christian people and go, "Oh they're perfect, they're not broken like me." And we're all broken. And that's the beauty of it. But not everybody realizes their brokenness. So thank you, really, thank you so much for that open-heartedness.

And I'm just praying that if you're in that spot you don't hold back. Get in touch with us, we're here, we've got counselors who can help you, we've got a heap of resources including Ron and Nan's book, *The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself*.

There's an idea. How do we get control of these things that shaped us as children mostly in the wrong way and then reshape them for a godly way? And that's the broad concept here: live your life in a Christlike way. And great to do that in your marriage. So again thanks for being with us.

Nan Deal: Thank you for having us.

John Fuller: Yeah, there's so many ways Focus on the Family is here for you in your marriage. Give us a call, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY and we can schedule a time for you to speak with one of our caring Christian counselors. We'd be happy to tell you about our Hope Restored marriage intensives. We also host marriage getaway weekends for you and your spouse if you just want to reconnect and renew your commitment to each other.

And of course we have Ron and Nan's book and we'd be happy to tell you more about that. We'll send a copy when you make a donation of any amount. It all begins with that call to 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/weekend.

Jim Daly: And John, here's a comment from a woman named Joy who recently attended Hope Restored with her husband. Joy said, "Over the years I have let my heart become hardened into something I didn't recognize or want to be. But this intensive helped me show my heart and my feelings to my spouse and give our 30-year marriage a chance. I am leaving here with renewed hope for our marriage and I believe the Lord worked miracles in our hearts and lives."

John Fuller: I love hearing that! That's an amazing transformation.

Jim Daly: It is, and that's what we're looking for. We hear miracle stories like that literally every week and that's how your generosity is impacting couples and transforming families. Think of keeping a family together, what that does for them as a couple, but what does that do for their children?

And I want to invite you to do ministry through Focus on the Family today. Give generously, it's a lifetime investment into God's kingdom.

John Fuller: And our number again, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY or make that contribution at focusonthefamily.com/weekend. And thanks for joining us today for this episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.