Focus on the Family

Nan Deal: It was just the same thing. It just kept cycling. I kept responding and he kept responding. We were 20-something years in and it was like, "It's either you or me, or get us some help."

Jim Daly: That’s pretty dramatic. He’s a therapist. Obviously you can’t fix this, so get us some help to help fix this.

John Fuller: That’s Nan Deal describing some of the pain points in her marriage to her husband, Ron. 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 spot in our own marriages. I’m John Fuller, and thanks for joining us.

Jim Daly: John, after yesterday’s program, it made me think about the speck in the eye. I’ve never really thought about that verse in the context of marriage, but it’s glaringly obvious. Who’s closer to you than your spouse?

That speck in the eye analogy that Jesus gave us in Matthew—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?

John Fuller: Right. I don’t know why, but we tend to think, "I’m fine. It’s them. They’re the problem."

Jim Daly: How about this? If you can just get your act together, we’d have a great marriage. I think at some point in our 39 years, I may have thought of that, but I don’t want to admit it.

We had a great discussion last time with Ron and Nan Deal, and we’re going to continue that today. We covered concepts about how we trigger one another. I did confess at that point that I’m really good at pushing those buttons. That’s probably true for many married couples. We just don’t get off that craziness. 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. We’re going to continue today to talk about how to have a better marriage by loving one another.

John Fuller: The book that forms the basis for our conversation is *The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself*. 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. Let me pick up with this question because 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.

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. That is so critical. The Scripture is full of that example. Know what is true. 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." I’m trying to outrun that label in my own head, 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: sometimes I do feel inadequate and sometimes I’ve really messed up. That’s true.

But what does that mean? Does that add up to me not being okay as a person or my worth and value being gone? No, it doesn’t. I’ll never forget the day I realized the 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. I could actually admit that I was disappointing to her and it wasn't going to be the end of the world.

I know that sounds funny to say out loud. But for some reason, somewhere in my history, I decided that's what's at stake here. 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.

For me to be able to go, "What is the Truth?" God tells me my worth and value is in Jesus Christ. That's number one. We always say go vertical before you try to do the horizontal. You remember who you are in Christ. With that, I also know Nan loves me. She can be upset or irritated in any given moment. That's not the end of us. We'll get through this. I may have something to learn. I can reflect on that. We'll find our way through. Just relax.

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 ask what the Truth is and how to live out of it.

Jim Daly: Ron, 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 that she's going to be upset. Has any other guy ever been in that place? All our hands go up. We're running in our heads, thinking she's going to accuse us of being distracted. Nan, tell us how you processed it and where your head was at.

Ron Deal: Me overworking is part of the things that I do to cope with feeling inadequate. When I missed those calls, I thought, "Here we go. She's going to be mad. She's going to walk in the door and unload. I need to get prepared for that." Then I remembered my four steps and I said, "Wait a minute. That's the old Ron who's fretting and anxious and guarded, defending myself before she's even come back."

The truth is maybe I made a mistake. Or the Truth is she's not going to leave me even if she is disappointed. Calm down, Ron. 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.

Nan Deal: I was like, "Hey!" I wasn't that concerned. My triggers are abandonment. 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."

I did not experience that 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, 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.

That moment walking in was after months of realizing he could be busy. He could be doing something very important. Was it really important what I needed? If I really needed him, I could have said, "I've fallen and I can't get up." I could have given him a different message. It's more of a mindfulness in me that he's changing and I can change my response in this moment.

Ron Deal: She comes in in peace. I didn't just assume the worst. I was sitting in peace. What for a second or two I thought was about to be a disaster turned out to be absolutely nothing. In part due to both of us doing our work, dealing with the log in our own eye. When we finally got together, she walked by, said hello, had a smile, and I'm like, "Wow, this is amazing."

A few minutes later I just checked in. "Hey, sorry I missed your calls. Was that anything?" She was like, "Yeah, no, it wasn't a big deal. We can talk about that." It didn't have to be about abandonment and inadequacy because we didn't let it go there.

Jim Daly: You are working on things, and that is good. You're moving forward and you have these examples where it's a better, new pattern. You're racking up victories in your relationship. Nan, you then started to experience something with your son, both of you. It really devastated you. What happened with Connor and what was your reaction over the long haul?

Nan Deal: We saw Terry in 2007 and our son died of a MRSA staph infection after being sick for just ten days, which came out of nowhere. He was 12. That was in 2009. Truly the Lord's provision was being in Terry's office and working with him for two years to set a stage for when the rug was completely pulled out from underneath us.

At that point, Terry was just our grief counselor. I am so very grateful for the time he spent with us just caring and hearing our grief. He was so kind with it. In the beginning, Ron and I grieved very much the same. He never left me. We were thrust together. We had the same sorrows, the same anger, and the same doubt and disillusionment with faith in God. We were saying "why" together.

About four years in, I saw him journeying to some resolution as he was reading Job. He had some peace about it and some surrender with his grief. I was still feeling so abandoned, so lost. You have to understand, I poured myself into my boys. It was my identity.

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. It truly was. He was the glue in between the boys too. There was not only my loss and Ron's loss, but it completely devastated our family and our other two children.

Our youngest was sleeping beside our bed for two years. Our oldest was 14 at the time, and who wants to be the 14-year-old brother who has a brother that's gone? Going to middle school like that is hard enough. I'm navigating all of that and just feeling like, "Where are you, God, in this?"

I feel like my faith wasn't as strong as it is now. There were just avenues with numbing through alcohol and prescription medication. That was my way of coping for about a decade.

Jim Daly: 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 Mike and his wife had that similar loss with cancer with their son.

It happens. You start doing the equation. "I've lived my life for you. Why would you take my son or my daughter from me?" It's not a healthy place to be. We don't have those answers.

Nan Deal: I feel like I was doing it well because of the prideful part of me. I feel like I was doing it right because I didn't have that growing up. Of anything in our marriage, parenting was great. We just connected and did it together in tandem. It was just a beautiful thing. We had this Norman Rockwell painting. We truly had a golden retriever.

The boys would hug each other and kiss each other before they'd go to bed at night. Connor was reading to us out of his chapter book and things were beautiful like that. We were on the cusp of the preteen years. It was a sweet season. We prayed for them and about them, and we were taking them to church.

I was checking off all those boxes, Lord. I was doing A and B and C. He was a healthy kid. It came out of nowhere and we never saw it coming.

Jim Daly: Ron, for you, seeing Nan suffer in that way, you were coming to this place of some resolution. You are never going to be completely resolved on that with the Lord, but you were getting to a place saying, "Okay, Lord, I feel like I'm moving forward." But Nan was in trouble. What were you thinking at that point?

Ron Deal: It was really difficult. Safety in a relationship is everything. The more she numbed, the less safe things got in our relationship. Some of those old triggers were now super sensitive.

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

Nan Deal: In his defense, I was lying to everybody. I lied 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. It was always at night. As soon as he'd go to bed—and he's a deep, deep sleeper—it really 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?" It was the enemy's way of isolating me. 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 it scared me.

He would be whispering to me all the time. I'd think maybe I should go to rehab. I remember thinking, "Yeah, go to rehab and your husband's just started this huge ministry. You've moved to Little Rock and you'll ruin that for him."

Those were the lies of the enemy. All of that from childhood—me taking care of things myself, taking care of self with marriage—then that was my way of taking care of this grief. It just became chains.

Jim Daly: John 10:10 says the thief, Satan, comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That's an example of it. That isolation is 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 80-year-olds. It's his mission every day to take us out.

How did this come right? People are maybe even in that spot. We did a broadcast not long ago with a woman who was in a very similar situation. Alcohol became her night beverage to cope. 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 I may not be accessible to you," which triggered the abandonment and the pain. I went on a five-day bender.

He came home. I was teaching at the time and we were sequestered. School shut down. Anytime he traveled, I had somebody for lunch and breakfast so I wasn't alone. COVID stripped all of that away. COVID stripped everything. The restaurants were closing, friends were saying they couldn't come for the weekend, and he was gone.

He came home and our country, our world was shutting down. I had no job. He gets up, he comes home and he had a look on his face. I had hit bottom. I'd gone on a bender that weekend, probably 52 calls and so many terrible texts that I sent him not knowing that I had done it. I was very angry and bitter.

He came home and asked, "Who are you and what is happening?" 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." I had already lost myself.

We got up that Monday and he said he had to get on a Zoom and figure the pandemic thing out with his team, which was triggering. I had nothing. I am completely isolated. I went into our guest bedroom and I thought, "Oh, I'll do yoga. That might help."

I lay down on that mat and couldn't get up for about two hours. It was my bottoming. I cried for two hours like I used to cry over my son. I was at the end of me. I cried out to the Lord and I said, "I cannot do this anymore. I have nothing." I literally cried uncle. I said, "If you would have me, I want to do it your way."

I felt that peace that surpasses all understanding that day. It was as if he had taken his hands and completely wiped me off. 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: Nan, the Scripture in Psalms says he's close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit. Why don't we run there? That's where you're going to meet the Lord, even in that pain. Isn't it amazing how God brought good from your bottoming out? It is a humiliating thing to do.

Nan Deal: I'm grateful for that day, March 17th, 2020. I will remember it forever. 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. Now we can do this." 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, and I want to bring God glory because I know there are other people like me.

Jim Daly: You're talking to them right now. People are in that place hurting in one way or the other. I think one of the things to tie a bow around is this concept of the peace cycle. We talked about the pain cycle. The pain cycle for her was 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 him. 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. That was day one of her recovery. She got into a 12-step group and kept going. We work with a parents-who-have-lost-a-child group. Every day we get triggered, and every day we have an opportunity to deal with the log in our own eye and manage ourselves.

John Fuller: Focus on the Family is here for you in your marriage. Give us a call at 800-A-FAMILY. 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.

Jim Daly: 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-A-FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

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."

I love hearing that. That’s just an amazing transformation. 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, and what that does for their children? 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: Our number again is 800-A-FAMILY, or make that contribution at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Coming up tomorrow, Rhonda Stoppe has some powerful lessons about motherhood from moms in the Bible.

Rhonda Stoppe: That's such an important season in our children's lives to pour into them. I can only imagine Jochebed nursing that baby, singing songs to him of deliverance and songs of Yahweh, and imprinting on him a love for her God even in the short seasons she had him.

John Fuller: That's next time on Focus on the Family. Remember when you get in touch, let us know how you're listening—on our website, through our mobile app, or on our podcast feed. I'm John Fuller and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, join us next time as we help you and your family thrive.