186: Is Fear Running Your Stepfamily? (Here’s How to Spot It)–Gayla Grace

Episode Transcript

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Season 8, Episode 186: Is Fear Running Your Stepfamily? (Here’s How to Spot It)

Guest:Gayla Grace

Air Date: March 23, 2026

Brian (00:03):

Let’s not be stingy with our timeouts in marriage. That’s really what we’re saying. You got unlimited. You can call them as much as you want, as often as you want, just to remind each other, “We’re on the same team. God is for us. Alright, let’s get back on the game plan that’s going to work.” And that’s going to feel forced and weird and not going to feel natural at times. It’ll feel natural eventually. I heard someone once say, “It’s easier to act your way into a new kind of feeling than it is to feel your way into a new kind of acting.” So stop waiting for the feelings. Let’s just start the new acting and see what happens.

Ron (00:38):

Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. If you don’t know FamilyLife Blended is the largest blended family equipping ministry, well in the world as far as we know. And we have resources for couples in blended families and for the churches who serve them. And every once in a while, we have an event that brings all of that together. We’re going to be talking about that a little bit. Today Gayla Grace is in the studio with me today.

Gayla (01:08):

Yes! Glad to be here, Ron.

Ron (01:09):

Always good to work with you. If you don’t know, Gayla is a part of the FamilyLife Blended team. She’s an author and speaker and she hosts our Women and Blended Families livestream that happens on a monthly basis. That airs on social media and it sits out there on YouTube if you missed it. You can always go back and watch back issues of that, but you want to sign up for that. And she’s always a featured speaker at Blended and Blessed every year.

Gayla (01:36):

Right.

Ron (01:36):

Which we love having you be a part of that.

Gayla (01:38):

Thank you.

Ron (01:39):

Speaking of Blended and Blessed, 26 is just one month away and thanks to donors to this ministry, this year Blended and Blessed is free.

Gayla (01:51):

I know. So excited.

Ron (01:54):

Free is a really good word, right?

Gayla (01:55):

Yes, it’s a great word.

Ron (01:56):

Saturday April 18th, couples can attend virtually from anywhere in the world or you can join the live audience in Oklahoma City at Crossings Church and we’re going to charge you 10 bucks for lunch because we’re going to feed you. But other than that, it’s really inexpensive as well. Or, as always, with Blended and Blessed, your church can host this event for couples in your community for free. You can host it for free. You don’t have to charge them anything unless you want to charge them for lunch, but you can make the event what it needs to be. And again, this time this year, there is no cost to attend virtually as a congregation or virtually as a couple.

Gayla (02:36):

From anywhere.

Ron (02:37):

From anywhere.

Gayla (02:37):

You can attend from anywhere virtually.

Ron (02:38):

And if the time zone doesn’t work for you, that’s all right. You either back up the video like you would a YouTube video or if you’re in another part of the planet and you would rather watch it another day, you can do that. You have access, you have all those options that are available for you. We have hundreds and thousands of people participate every year. Hundreds of churches participate. You really don’t want to miss this. Did I mention that it’s free?

Gayla (03:01):

You have mentioned it’s free.

Ron (03:02):

I think maybe I did.

Gayla (03:03):

We can remind them again.

Ron (03:04):

So Gayla, this year, our theme is Hope in the Journey, right? Trying to encourage people just in their blended family experience.

Gayla (03:14):

The truth is sometimes we lose hope as blended families. We get in some hard waters, and we begin to think, is there really hope for our journey? And that’s why it’s important for us to remind couples that there’s always hope.

Ron (03:29):

Yeah, I’m excited for the lineup. You and I are going to be speaking of course, but we’ve also got Dave and Kristi Blackburn going to be with us. Kathi Lipp, who is just so funny. We love her. She is a crowd favorite.

Gayla:

Yes, she is. She’s great.

Ron:

She’s spoken for us before. And Cheryl Shumake, who of course we love.

Gayla (03:44):

Right.

Ron (03:45):

Always brings a really solid message. So let me just wrap this up. If you don’t know anything about Blended and Blessed or you want to register, go to BlendedandBlessed.com, or you can just look in the show notes, and we will get you connected. Gayla people are busy, why should they give up a Saturday to come and be a part of Blended and Blessed?

Gayla (04:04):

Honestly, it could save their marriage, especially if they’re in a hard spot. We give so many great just practical advice about—

Ron (04:12):

We’ve definitely heard feedback from people who have said this was a game changer for us.

Gayla (04:16):

Yes. Absolutely. And then for churches also, it’s important if it’s hosted at a church, it helps those in their congregation to recognize, “Oh, you see us. You realize we are here.” And it can also help pastors just understand how to minister to blended families and help educate them about what those families in their congregation need.

Ron (04:37):

When I was in local church ministry doing marriage and family ministry, there’s always a unique subject that I didn’t feel equipped to be able to work with. And when you found that person who was the local expert on whatever the topic was—I remember when sexual addiction was first starting and a lot of us had not really gotten our heads around that yet, but I found a guy that I trusted, and he had a really good way of dealing with that. So we brought him in and helped him be a team member for us.

Gayla (05:06):

Yeah.

Ron (05:06):

Here’s where I’m going with this. Most pastors don’t have any functional working knowledge of blended family living.

Gayla (05:12):

Right.

Ron (05:13):

And here’s what we’re saying to you in this partnership with Blended and Blessed. You don’t have to. You let us do the work.

Gayla (05:19):

Right.

Ron (05:19):

We’ve raised the money. We’re making the event available. We’re bringing it to you at no cost. We’re making it accessible to your people. We bring in the expertise. You just need to—the partnership is, gather the people, get them together.

Gayla (05:33):

Right, and ideally if there’s a couple in the congregation who’s a blended couple and they’re wanting to invest in other couples, then they can kind of take it and then run with it after the event is over and begin to maybe start a small group and just continue ministering to blended families.

Ron (05:49):

Okay, so there you go. Whether you’re a couple or a ministry leader, you have no excuse. Join us for Blended and Blessed. And I think you should register right now.

Gayla (05:58):

Right.

Ron (05:59):

Yeah. I’m waiting right now. Why not? Even during this podcast, you can do two things at once.

Gayla:

We do it all the time.

Ron:

We do it all the time. Multitask, go online and register right now. It’s free. You got nothing to lose. We’ll send you all the information. If you’re a church leader, you want to know how to promote it, we got that stuff waiting for you on the website as well. There you go.

Okay. Well, on this edition of FamilyLife Blended, we’re going to share a little of what happened last year at Blended and Blessed because we have a new theme every year and new speakers, and it’s not a repeat, it’s something new. And by the way, if you didn’t hear last year’s Blended and Blessed, you can get access to that through our, what we call the All-Access Digital Pass. And you can get access to the previous years, eight years before that as well. So let’s just set the stage for what we’re going to help people understand a little bit. Nan and I had just released in January of last year, The Mindful Marriage, and we did a fair amount of teaching during Blended and Blessed in 25—

Gayla (07:02):

You did.

Ron (07:03):

—around some of the themes in that book, but we also have what we call these blended bits. It’s kind of a focused intense conversation around a specific topic. And you talked about ghosts in marriage.

Gayla (07:17):

Yes.

Ron (07:17):

We have learned this is an important topic for the blended couple.

Gayla (07:22):

It is, and I think you’re kind of blindsided by this, but the reality is most of us come into a remarriage, or even if this is your first marriage and you’re carrying some ghosts either from family of origin wounds that never have really gotten resolved for you, or if you have been married before, there’s some stuff back here from this marriage that you carry in. And sometimes we see those ghosts begin to haunt you and play out in ways that are not good in regards to relationship building.

Ron (07:55):

This is a weird analogy, but it just came to me. Here we are as we’re recording this. We’ve been in the middle of an ice storm here in central Arkansas, and a lot of the country has experienced all that. I was talking with somebody just the other day who fell as a result of the ice and the snow. Well, guess what? You just don’t run outside after that, right? That is a ghost. That’s a physical moment where you have been changed forever because of a painful moment. And you now rethink, you second guess. You’re far more careful. You’re tentative in how you go about things. And that’s the haunting that ghosts do in relationships.

Gayla (08:35):

That your brain just automatically goes to that in different situations.

Ron (08:39):

And I must say you did a fabulous job addressing that at Blended and Blessed last year. And we’re going to let our viewers and our listeners in on that little piece. Here is Gayla talking about, in 2025 at Blended and Blessed, talking about ghosts in relationships.

Gayla (09:03):

Facing ghosts is the point of this blended bit. Ron and Nan get a great job of talking to us about these family of origin wounds that we carry into adulthood. But I’m talking about ghosts of marriage past. Does that kind of sound like we’re in a haunted house? I don’t really like haunted houses. I don’t like ghosts. Well, except for the Holy Ghost. I could talk about Him all day. But we are talking about ghosts that we often bring in when we’ve been married before, and we’ve had some hard stuff back here that just hasn’t really gotten resolved and we carry it into our new marriage. That happened to me. I was married 11 years to a man. We had two daughters together. He was a medical doctor. Life was going to be rosy. But sadly, he went down the road of addiction. He eventually lost his medical license, never to regain it.

(09:57):

And many years into our marriage, he was driving while impaired one night, had a car accident that killed another man. And there were horrific far-reaching consequences as a result. And I became consumed with fear because if something that bad, that horrific, can happen in the instant unexpected, then something bad can happen again. And I became fearful of that even after divorce. I carried that into my new marriage with Randy. And it played out in several different ways, but I remember clearly one night when Randy went to the medicine cabinet to get a couple of Advil for his headache. I had been impacted by the abuse of prescription drugs, and my mind went to what are you getting and what is that going to do to you? Randy could be trusted in every way, but I was carrying this into my new marriage, and I was treating Randy like my first spouse. Because when we have ghosts, we become hypersensitive to our pain.

(11:09):

We don’t want to experience pain again. And so we try to protect ourselves. And there are so many ways that these ghosts, that this baggage can show up for us. I want you to think about that now, perhaps what ghost you have. And then we’re going to talk about how we cope with these ghosts. Maybe you’ve experienced betrayal, infidelity in that first marriage. Maybe there was just a lot of dishonesty and lies. And as a result of that, you carried some distrust into your new marriage. And when your spouse doesn’t come home when they say they’re going to, your ghost starts to haunt you. Or maybe it just didn’t do conflict well in that first marriage and there was a lot of yelling. And now in your new marriage, if your spouse yells at the dog your mind goes to, he’s going to yell at me next.

(12:01):

Pain does hard stuff to us.

I’ve talked to others who have had serious financial issues in their first marriage and now in their new marriage when the spouse says You’ve got child support that ought to just go towards your kids. I think we ought to have two separate accounts. That seems logical to me. Your brain goes to “No, no, no. That means we’re going to be divided and that’s going to eventually lead to divorce.” You have a ghost haunting you. We got to learn how to talk back to these ghosts. In fact, we have to own the voice in our head and start talking back to it. Sometimes we need God’s help with this. Maybe you’ve heard this saying, we spent too much time listening to ourselves when we should be talking to ourselves. We should be talking God’s truth to ourselves. So for me, with my fear, I needed to be saying “God walks with me.”

(13:05):

I needed to remember all the times in the past when God has provided for me. I can’t stop bad things from happening in life. Life is hard. But I can tell myself and remind myself that God is bigger than my fear.

Now there’s other ghosts that come into marriage with us sometimes in stepfamily life and different ways that we begin to acquire ghosts. Maybe if you’ve got these feelings that just kind of linger under the surface as a result of things that you’ve walked through for a long time. Maybe you’re a stepmom. You walked into a blended family that has teenage kids that just really aren’t interested in having a relationship with you and it’s gone on far too long and you don’t think it’s ever going to get better. And you pick up the bag of unwanted. And if this is a bag from childhood, you’re quicker to pick it up and it’s going to be harder to conquer.

(14:05):

Maybe you’re a biological parent whose kids chose to go live in the other home with the other biological parent. That’s hurtful to you. You don’t understand it. You don’t want it. You feel like you failed and you pick up a bag labeled inadequate, and this ghost is haunting you when your kids come to visit you. God wants to help us. Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. We will not fear.”

We can also have ghosts that reappear from years past. This happened to me recently. Remember this ghost that’s from 30 years ago, it reappeared this ghost of fear. You see, my husband and I have a daughter and son-in-law who live in a foreign country on the other side of the world. This last year they had our first grand baby. What a joyful time. I wasn’t there when Harvest was born. And in this last year, Harvest has learned to crawl, to eat real food, to pull up. She’s taken her first steps. And on her one-year-old birthday, March the 15th, one month ago, my ghost spoke to me so loudly. My ghost of fear said, you will never have impact with Harvest. She will never know you because she’s in a foreign country.

(15:43):

I had to talk back. I had to tell that ghost, that’s not true. But I had to have God’s help. And this is what happens when we ask God to be our refuge. He shows up. He lets us know. He sees us. He hears us. He walks with us. Three months after Harvest was born last year, we had a second grandbaby born, Millie. Millie lives in the same town with us. I see Millie almost every week, but that does not take away my fear and my sadness towards Harvest. But I believe that God has used Millie to show me I see you. I hear you. I understand your journey. I’m walking with you. Reminds me of the story of Hagar back in Genesis if you know this story. Hagar was a maid servant of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham would be promised to be the father of many nations, but his wife Sarah was infertile.

(16:47):

Sarah came up with this plan to take her maid servant Hagar to have a child with Abraham. Not a good plan. He agreed to it. But as Hagar became pregnant, Sarah became wildly jealous and mistreated her so badly that Hagar fled to the desert for her life. God found her there. He said, “Hagar, where are you going? What are you doing? Go back to the household. I will take care of you and your son.” Hagar gives God the name El Roi, which means God sees. A few chapters over in Genesis, we see a repeat. Sarah and Hagar again have a huge struggle. Hagar runs away with her child. Ishmael has been born at this point, but again, at some point Hagar knows they’re not going to make it in the desert. She leaves her son crying. She walks away. She can’t stand to watch him die.

(17:51):

And again, God shows up. Ishmael’s name means God hears. And scripture tells us that God heard the boy crying and he directed Hagar to a well that saved them. And God protected Hagar and Ishmael as Ishmael grew up in the desert. This is what God does for us. God sees, God hears and then God helps. I don’t know what your ghost is, but it’s likely you’ve got one that’s haunting you. And I challenge you. Go to God with your ghost. Ask him to help you. Don’t try to battle it on your own. Yes, we have to do our part. We have to own the voices in our head. We have to talk back to those voices. And some days, we really need God’s help to battle those voices and to go back and remind ourselves, God is my refuge. Don’t be afraid of your ghost. Don’t allow them to rattle around in your closet without resolve. You will stay stuck in your pain if that’s the case. Face your ghosts, trust God to be your refuge, your strength, your ever-present help. He walks this journey with you, friends.

Ron (19:31):

Okay, Gayla. So you were talking about the fear ghost. Most people at this point know that the body keeps the score. At least there’s a title of a book. People are kind of familiar with the idea that if you’ve endured pain in a previous relationship or in your family or a previous marriage that you often find your body sort of keeps track of that. Your heart does, your emotions do, your soul, but we often carry this in our being. And the fear ghost is really, really common.

Gayla (20:05):

It is because it is easy for us to want to protect ourselves. Nobody wants to go through pain. We’ve all walked through pain, and we get in this mode of thinking, “I can keep myself through walking through pain again if I choose to protect myself.” And what that looks like in a relationship, Ron, as you pull back, you don’t invest yourself a hundred percent because you’ve got perhaps this pain of what happened in a previous relationship, and it’s haunting you now. And so you begin to protect yourself in your current marriage and in that relationship.

Ron (20:38):

You said pull back. I have this visual in my head of instead of leaning into the relationship and toward the other person, the ghost makes someone lean out.

Gayla (20:49):

Right.

Ron:

It’s just that space where, and Nan and I talk about this in The Mindful Marriage. I mean there was definitely seasons in our relationship where it was so hard to move toward one another because we knew the conflict was coming. We knew there was a lack of safety and trust in our relationship with that season. And so I know what that leaning out feels like. It’s like you really think long and hard before you bring up a topic. You think, you know what? It’s better if I just don’t. I’m just going to find another way or go in different direction or avoid that thing. And the crazy thing about leaning out is you’re now super hypersensitive to anything that would indicate uh oh, here comes more conflict, here comes more trouble. And when I start leaning out, guess what? She sees me leaning out so now it’s not just me being cautious. Now she’s being cautious. Before you know it, you’re really doing harm to your relationship.

Gayla (21:48):

And this can happen in our relationship with our stepchildren also, where maybe we have had the relationship feels awkward or it appears that they don’t want to invest in a relationship with us. And so then we choose not to do the effort to invest. It’s kind of like the clip where I talk about my relationship with my granddaughter Harvest because she lives overseas. And so sometimes I think, would it just be easier to not invest in that relationship? No, absolutely not. But that fear factor is what puts that in my head.

Ron (22:23):

That’s a perfect example. I mean, would it be better? And we’ve certainly heard from man, I’m thinking of biological dads who don’t get much time with their kids, and they see, okay, my ex-wife is married a guy and he’s great, and my kids seem to really like the guy. And maybe it would be better for my children if I just disappeared or just didn’t come over as much or let them stay at the other home and not have to go through the pain of coming over to my—like, no, no, no, no, no. That’s just that fear ghost haunting, suggesting that leaning out is the right way to go. It’s not.

Gayla (23:00):

It’s not. And we have to just dive in and trust God that He is walking with us and that He will guide us and that He will comfort us in the pain in the midst of it.

Ron (23:14):

So you were asking what are indicators to know if you’re haunted?

Gayla (23:18):

Yeah, because I think sometimes people, when we talk about ghosts, they wonder, well, how would I know if I have a ghost haunting me?

Ron (23:25):

I’ll tell you a story. I often tell this in my Building a Successful Stepfamily conference. True story: I was speaking a number of years ago in Texas and a woman that I happened to know was in the audience and I got to this section where we talked some about ghosts. And she later told me in another conversation “When you started to talk about that Ron, I thought, what’s this all about? I don’t really understand. It’s not for me, somebody else.” And then she said, “I decided to pray about it.” So even while the seminar’s going on, I’m still yapping up in the front. And she said to herself, “Lord, if there’s anything about this ghost stuff I need to know, would you please show it to me?”

Gayla (24:06):

Oh wow.

Ron (24:07):

And she said, “Within two minutes I had a flashback of a moment when my first marriage came apart.” And she said, “I hadn’t thought about that in years.” And then she started chasing, “Okay, God, why did I see that? Why did I feel that?” And she started asking herself, “How does this moment haunt me every day?” And she began to realize that I withhold from my husband, my current husband. She began to realize I do lean out. I in little moments of communication about this, or should I ask him about that money thing, or he seemed to be upset about something. Is that about me or is that, no, I’ll just leave it alone. All of those little moments where she began to recognize, oh yeah, I don’t risk here. I don’t risk there. I lean out here. I think that’s how you begin to know, pray and be open and begin to just sort of look in the mirror and watch yourself listen to yourself and notice what’s going on. I think that’s one way you can discover there’s a haunting going on even when you’re not fully aware of it.

Gayla (25:17):

And consider at times when you’ve sensed that you are protecting yourself for some reason, which is what it’s all about when you’re saying, “Do we want to dive into this subject if it’s going to bring conflict?” and you choose not to. You’re protecting yourself.

Ron (25:31):

Another thing is calculating. When you sit and you go, you find yourself thinking, okay, is it worth me bringing this up or should I just, or boy, if I talk about so-and-so’s child, if I bring up a parenting issue, is this just going to be another argument? I’d rather not. Yeah, those are real good indicators there’s a tension, there’s a stress, there’s a something going on and it’s got the better of you and you’re afraid.

Gayla (26:00):

I do like what you said though about we need to pray about it. We need to make sure that we have discernment in regards to how to present it and be wise in regards to that.

Ron (26:12):

One more observation. You might know you’re haunted when you notice certain stress you’re carrying in your body. Everybody carries stress somewhere. For me, I get headaches or I get a lower back ache.

Gayla:

Really?

Ron:

Now that’s where I carry my stress. If I find myself standing up, stretching, going, “Oh man, why am I so tight?” My next thought that I’ve learned to make is, “Yeah, what am I stressed about?” Because my body’s already carrying it. I just haven’t really recognized why my body’s reacting this way. So everybody carries it perhaps in a different way, some in their stomach, some aches and pains. Whatever it is for you, listen to that. It’s so amazing how physiologically stress will carry itself somewhere in your body even when you don’t even recognize that you’re really in knots about something.

Gayla (27:05):

Right. You’re reacting in ways. Yeah.

Ron (27:06):

Okay, great stuff. There’s some other ghosts. In an article that we have online we outlined some particular ghosts. I thought it would be fun for us to just walk through some of these. So the first one, protect the kids. This ghost says about your spouse. What does he or she know? They’re just a stepparent to my kids. You better watch out or your kids are going to experience more pain. You got to protect them from the stepparent, your spouse. Protect the kids. I think that’s mamas and daddies alike can be mama bear, papa bear kind of stuff on this.

Gayla (27:46):

Right. But our friend Tammy Daughtry talks about bio fog and step vision. So that’s bio fog.

Ron (27:53):

It is.

Gayla (27:54):

Where you are convinced, I’m the only one who can parent this child and I’m not going to allow my partner to be a part of it. When the truth is the stepparent has step vision. They have objectivity that the biological parent doesn’t have, and it’s really helpful to include the stepparent, but it’s a ghost haunting.

Ron (28:12):

It is. I think one of the big pieces for people sometimes is recognizing, am I defensive about my kids a lot? Do I jump pretty quickly to defending and stepping in front of them and taking the bullets so to speak, from the stepparent or whatever? Yeah. Well that could be a ghost. Now I want to say legitimately, sometimes there’s a reason, especially in extreme situations, to jump in there. We’re not saying don’t do that, but what we’re saying is if you notice this repetitive pattern where, boy, I am just quick to be defensive of my kids rather than objective. Yeah, that’s probably a ghost and you need to pay attention to it.

Gayla (28:51):

Right. I agree.

Ron (28:53):

Keep your eye on the money. This one says, boy, hang on to a little money. Just stick it away. Don’t tell somebody about it. You don’t want to get stuck holding the bag.

Gayla (29:06):

And I also think money issues can revolve around if there was conflict in a previous marriage or a previous relationship. And so then you bring this in, it haunts you, and so then you don’t want to address it. Or you think, if we have conflict about money, is it just going to take us down a hard road because that’s all you saw from before. So it just depends on, money can play out in several different ways.

Ron (29:29):

Sure, sure. And sensitivities develop over time. So if you grew up in a home where money was few and far between, there was a lot of insecurity with that, you just might have a natural inclination being careful about it. There’s nothing wrong with being smart about spending, but if you find yourself tucking it away and not telling somebody, there’s the piece, that secretive aspect of it that is telling something’s going on below the surface.

Here’s another one, who’s in our bed?

Gayla (30:01):

Oh, yeah.

Ron (30:01):

It’s kind of where you’re beginning to wonder about, is my partner fully with me? Are they still thinking sexually about their previous marital partner? How do I know that you’re entirely here and am I entirely here?

Gayla (30:17):

And for women, this is where insecurities can show up also, and you begin to think about, can I match up to whatever they had in the past or do I look good enough for what they had in the past? I mean, all of that.

Ron (30:30):

Yeah, those insecurities. And that’s really significant. So even if you have a natural inclination towards a little bit of that insecurity, well, again, what we’re saying here is when that keeps showing up over and over again, it’s bound to influence your own response behavior. If you start leaning out, then again, you’re the one who’s not showing up in that moment in time because of the insecurities.

Gayla (30:55):

And Ron, you’ve got some great podcasts with Juli Slattery on this subject. This is a hard subject to talk about with your spouse.

Ron (31:01):

I think it is.

Gayla (31:01):

And there’s some good podcasts out there if people are struggling.

Ron (31:05):

So if you’re listening or watching, encourage you to scroll back through the FamilyLife Blended podcasts and look for those. In particular that we’ve done with Juli Slattery because those are deep dives into that subject.

The divorce ghosts: divorce teaches you trust not, want not.

Gayla (31:21):

It does.

Ron (31:21):

This ghost says vulnerability is dangerous. Don’t want the relationship or the person or want them to want you too much. The more you lean out over your shoes, the more out of balance you feel.

Gayla (31:35):

It’s about you’re protecting yourself again. That’s going to be a red flag for you if that’s what’s going on. Have you resolved whatever happened back here in that divorce? Have you resolved it? And truthfully, you might need to get counseling to help with that. Divorce is hard and it leaves you wounded.

Ron (31:54):

Yeah. I’m so glad you said that because I have an observation about, have you resolved it? I think the Lord, the Spirit brings things to our awareness in layers. I think it’s His kindness and His mercy that He didn’t show Ron everything that’s wrong about Ron all at once or Ron would’ve a really hard day. What He does is He gives me a little bit of, oh, okay, man, there’s something I need to work on. And then a little time goes by and here’s another one. Okay, that’s His kindness. I think people say, did you go through Divorce Care? Did you resolve that divorce? Did you have enough time grieving the loss of that before you got married? I think the answer that most people give is yes, because they have dealt with the layer that was in front of them.

Gayla (32:44):

At the time, yes.

Ron (32:46):

But then you get into a new relationship that requires another deep commitment. Now you’re anxious not only for you, but for your kids, and you discover another layer that needs care and attention. It’s okay, you didn’t screw up. You didn’t miss it.

Gayla (33:04):

You didn’t marry too soon.

Ron (33:06):

Exactly. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s like the Lord’s kindness, but here’s the layer. We still got to deal with it. Sure enough, there’s some lingering stuff from the divorce, even though you did go through Divorce Care.

Gayla (33:18):

Right, tried to do all the right things.

Ron (33:20):

Exactly.

Gayla (33:21):

There’s no way you’re ever going to be prepared for all that you encounter when you enter blended family life.

Ron (33:27):

And so the point is, when you see it, you recognize it. Now I got to deal with it.

Gayla (33:31):

Right. Yeah.

Ron (33:33):

How about this, the fear factor? Well, this is sort of the whole thing. We could almost boil all this conversation down to the fear factor.

Gayla (33:40):

Yeah, we could. So many different fears. Yeah.

Ron (33:44):

I’ll just point out the book I wrote with David Olson based on a large research study, The Smart Stepfamily Marriage. This fear factor was something we sort of put words on as a result of the research that we did, and it’s really significant. And here’s the point of all of this is that fear of another breakup, fear of losing again, fear of you wanting and loving more than they want or love you, those kind of elements do what we’ve just said. It leads you to lean out, be cautious, be guarded, self-protective and it cascades this negativity. And here’s this other piece. You begin to look for evidence that you have reason to be afraid, and then you see it where it’s not necessarily there. Self-fulfilling prophecy kind of stuff.

Gayla (34:31):

Yes.

Ron (34:33):

This is why we’re talking so much about this topic, because if you don’t, you’re the one seeding in negativity without even realizing it.

Gayla (34:45):

You’re almost creating it.

Ron (34:46):

Exactly.

Gayla (34:47):

That’s what you’re saying.

Ron (34:48):

And so again, listen to yourself, what am I afraid of? What’s this really about?

Another one, oh, you know what that means? This is the ghost that says, “Oh, did you see that look in his or her eye? Did you see the way they—

Gayla (35:00):

Yeah. You constantly misinterpret what people are doing, their behavior, what they’re saying, and it’s based on the ghost of it’s haunting you.

Ron (35:08):

I think this is a good example of what we were just saying, how you see it when it’s not there.

Gayla (35:14):

Yeah. You read into stuff that is simply not there.

Ron (35:17):

Yeah. Mannerisms may be the same. Your previous spouse raises their voice when they were getting really mad so anytime that happens, it sets off alarms inside you. Those alarms are going to happen. Triggers happen. That was another point we made last year at Blended and Blessed. Triggers happen this side of heaven, but what you do as a result of those triggers is entirely up to you.

Gayla (35:38):

Right.

Ron (35:38):

It doesn’t have to bring out the worst in us or reactivity.

Gayla (35:43):

And everybody can have a bad day and have triggers and react in a way that is not healthy. And sometimes we just have to step back and offer grace and recognize this isn’t about me, what has just happened with this person. This is about what’s going on with them.

Ron (35:59):

We talked about the divorce ghost a little bit ago. The widow ghost says, you’ll never find another one just like him or her.

Gayla (36:08):

And guess what, Ron? You won’t.

Ron (36:10):

Good point.

Gayla (36:11):

I mean seriously. But it doesn’t mean that you haven’t found another person who is good, who God has brought into your life to be your partner now. But they’re not going to be the same.

Ron (36:22):

I think one of the little follow-ups to that is when you are thinking in your back of your mind, “Well, I wonder what”—first husband who passed away—”I wonder what he would say about this.” He would say, we should do our money this way. He would say, we should load the dishwasher this way. He would say things that are significant, things that are really insignificant, but you’ve sort of got this comparison running between first spouse that was just the love of your life and now this spouse. Be careful of that kind of stuff; that constant running comparison. You need to take those thoughts captive.

Gayla (37:00):

And Ron, if it’s something that’s super important to you, let’s say for instance, we’ve been talking about the snow. So let’s say that your first husband was really good about making sure your car was cleaned off and the car was warmed up. And if he knew that you were going somewhere, he was going to prepare you for that. Maybe your new husband doesn’t. And if it’s really important to you, then talk about it. Don’t just sit there and let that ghost haunt you and think it’s never, it’s not the same. This isn’t going to make it.

Ron (37:28):

That’s good. To our viewers and listeners, you got any ghosts as we’ve been talking, as we’ve been having any little thoughts about, huh? Yeah, I do that. Okay. Write it down. I would say capture this and physically write it down so that you go through the process of putting words on what this ghost says to you, how you feel it, how you experience it. It’s going to help you identify that. Because what you want to do is just begin to notice the haunting and how it occurs so that you can pull back from that a little bit and say, yeah, now how do I respond in this moment? So I have the thought come, he’s not the same as the first and the comparison happens, then what do I do?

(38:15):

How am I going to dial that down? Lord, help me have a plan here to move through that moment and not just continue to ruminate on the comparison. That would be the plan. And so physically write that down. That’s given you a path and a journey out.

Gayla, a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. When you were talking, you talked about reminding yourself of the truth that God can be trusted, that He’s an ever-present help for us. And you talked about talking back to your ghost. Got any thoughts about why that’s important?

Gayla (38:48):

Well, that scripture, Psalm 46:10, has been so impactful for me because it does talk about, He’s our ever-present help during these times when we’re struggling with these ghosts and we get discouraged and we think, “I don’t know how to work through this and overcome this ghost that just constantly shows up.” And as we’ve said before, as we pray about it and we ask the Holy Spirit to help us, He will. And that’s what I feel like really happened with me. But talking back to my ghost is about saying to my ghost, “That is not true.” What you are saying and what that ghost in regards to my relationship with Harvest was, you’ll never really be able to impact her because she lives in another country. That’s not true. My granddaughter has been in my house for three weeks right now because they are in the states and I have had so much precious time with her.

Ron (39:39):

That’s great.

Gayla (39:40):

And so these are just lies that Satan wants us to believe so that we don’t invest in those relationships.

Ron (39:47):

It’s so important. We joke around here in our office just even with our staff meetings, so we all too often listen to ourselves when we should be preaching to ourselves. Listen to ourselves as the ghost that just sort of naturally rises up the negative thought and we just sort of go with it and don’t even realize, wow, this thing is really moving me towards reactivity in a negative way. But to preach to ourselves is to say, okay, what’s God’s capital T truth? This is what we talk about in The Mindful Marriage. What’s the capital T truth that I need to hold onto right now? And what’s the lowercase t truths that are speaking to the lies that normally capture me? And if you don’t actively preach at yourself, you will constantly go with the negative thought all the time.

Gayla (40:35):

And I think you need to write it down. There’s been times I’ve put things on an index card, and I carry it with me through a day where I know I’m going to be more vulnerable to this ghost. And sometimes we just need extra reminders because it’s so fast to go back to whatever that negative thought is. That’s going to happen first.

Ron (40:53):

Yeah, that’s good. By the way, pro tip to our audience, they’re thinking, write it down now I’m putting it into my phone.

Gayla (41:00):

Okay, okay.

Ron (41:00):

I’m using my thumbs, but wait, but wait, here’s the punchline. That’s not the same. Did you know that physically writing and actually writing in cursive is even better for how you language something and how your brain absorbs something and typing with your thumbs doesn’t get you in the same place. So if it’s really important stuff, write it down.

Gayla (41:20):

If you don’t have your, which we all carry our phone, but sometimes I would put it in my car, I would put it on the bathroom mirror or places that I’m going to see it.

Ron (41:27):

That’s it. That’s really good. Okay, Gayla at Blended and Blessed 25 there was another conversation that took place. This one was totally unplanned, thanks to our friend Brian Goins, was the emcee. He’s going to be our emcee again in 26, so we hope everybody will be a part of that. Nan and I had just finished doing one of our presentations and Brian started talking smack like he does to Nan and I about, we have this college sports competition thing going on with Brian. I won’t get into who the teams are because everybody has an opinion about that, but here we are on stage and he’s talking smack. And that’s a segment we want to share with our audience right now. So let’s listen.

Brian (42:16):

So we happen to be some big basketball fans. Why are you standing so far away from me Nan?

Nan (42:20):

Because I’ve talked so much smack to you.

Brian (42:23):

Why are you inching away? I grew up on Tobacco Road, which means that it’s a stretch of I 40 in North Carolina where they’re talking about four teams, basketball teams. You got North Carolina State, Wake Forest, nobody cares about them.

Nan:

The wrong color blue.

Brian:

You got Duke and Carolina, which are separated by nine miles and depending upon what shade of blue that you wear will determine if we’re going to be friends or not. That’s just the way it goes. And she happens to wear and they happen to wear the wrong shade of blue.

Ron (42:47):

Duke Blue.

Brian (42:47):

Yeah. And so I know we got—there’s somebody that’s an Auburn War Eagle out here. I heard cheering. So we’ve got some War Eagles that are excited about the game tonight, but this is all going to relate. So I cheer for a great team, the North Carolina Tar Heels. You cheer for an ungodly team. It is the Blue Devils so it’s Satanic. I’m just saying it’s in the name, is all I’m saying. So listen, listen. No, I’ve got the mic right now Nan. So I say all this to say my team, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with, because I found that with Dean Smith, who was the coach before and Roy Williams, they would do something in games that drove me nuts. When the momentum was going in the wrong direction, they would not call a timeout, and they would save them and hoard them till the very end. And I know why, because you wanted them on the line. But there was times where it’s like you’re down by 12, call a timeout, like call a timeout. And I think that happens in marriage all the time.

Ron (43:44):

Yeah.

Brian (43:45):

And I feel like we get stingy with our timeouts and what you guys demonstrated to us in that last bit was a timeout. You’re saying the momentum’s going towards pain, you feel it. You know it’s going that way, and you decide we got to in that moment call a timeout. The way you called a timeout was to say what I know about me, and I think in my marriage so often, I don’t call a timeout just to pause, to do a pattern interrupt. And they say the difference between reacting and responding is about five seconds. So how hard has it been for you to learn that lesson of just calling a timeout? When you said that phrase, I don’t really want to say it.

Ron (44:27):

What I know about me.

Brian (44:27):

Yeah, because it feels forced. It feels—

Ron (44:30):

—hokey.

Brian (44:31):

Yeah. But then again, calling a timeout or just doing something specific, you don’t always want to do it either. So talk about that even with each other. How did you learn that rhythm of calling timeouts?

Ron (44:41):

Well, it comes down to—it’s self-control, right? It comes down to that personal discipline of am I going to get in charge of me? Because when I’m in pain, I’m not in charge of me. Which is what—you’re in pain because North Carolina has lost.

Nan:

Badly.

Ron:

I understand.

Brian:

Get back to the topic, the content. It’s more important.

Ron (45:00):

And so it’s like it’s a decision, a conscious decision to say, “I have got to do something because right now, I’m out of control.” I mean, that is a moment of massive change in any person’s walk. I don’t care if it’s a relationship, your boss, your mother, I don’t care what relationship it is, it is a massive moment of change and it just starts by saying, I’m responsible for me and I’ve got to do something here to begin to calm down. There’s all those little tricks about slowing your breathing and all those kinds of things are helpful to begin to help you slow down, slow your heart rate, blood pressure, all that kind of stuff. But the bottom line is you’ve got to decide it’s worth taking this moment. See basketball, no, we just feel like we got to score. No, it’s worth taking this moment to stop and figure out what I need to do next.

Brian:

That’s right.

Nan (45:51):

I think it’s hard when there’s a momentum going and the wrong has been to me and that’s what happened last week. Not trying to throw you under the bus.

Ron (46:01):

No, no, no.

Brian:

Back up the truck, get the tires on.

Nan (46:06):

It was a wrong to me, which then triggered all those other bags and honestly, we’ve hashed it out. I was innocent in it, but it was a harsh wrong. Where does that come from, that I don’t want to take a timeout. I’m going to bristle up in my pain and I’m going to get defensive.

Ron (46:28):

And you feel justified at that point.

Nan (46:29):

Yes.

Ron (46:29):

Because you did this to me, I therefore have the right to blame, shame, control, and escape you, which is never helpful.

Brian (46:37):

Exactly. And it’s, it’s just like the momentum of a game. You see that momentum going that way, and when you don’t stop blame, shame, control or escape, you already know the end result. And it’s never worked out well for me. And I’m going, why don’t I do something as simple as what I know about me? Or just to stop your breathing or just to say, Hey, let’s call a timeout here. What do you do in a timeout? You connect with a coach. You connect with God the Father.

Ron:

That’s right.

Brian:

He reminds you you’re on a team.

Ron (47:02):

Take a deep breath.

Brian (47:02):

Take a deep breath. Let’s look at the game plan again. Our game plan’s not working out there right now. It’s not working at all. Let’s try this game plan again. Let’s get back to the basics and what you gave us today in that peace cycle is a new game plan.

Ron (47:14):

That’s it.

Brian (47:14):

But sometimes in order to even connect with that, if you don’t call a pattern interrupt, a timeout in your marriage, you know that you’re going to go back into the pain cycle.

Ron (47:23):

That’s so good. Go Duke.

Brian (47:25):

Yeah. Now listen, that’s enough. Can you turn their mics off please? Thank you. Yeah, I just again, and let’s not be stingy with our timeouts in marriage. That’s really what we’re saying. You got unlimited. You can call them as much as you want, as often as you want just to remind each other “We’re on the same team. God is for us. Alright, let’s get back on the game plan that’s going to work.” And that’s going to feel forced and weird and not going to feel natural at times. It’ll feel natural eventually. I heard someone once say, “It’s easier to act your way into a new kind of feeling than it is to feel your way into a new kind of acting.” So stop waiting for the feelings. Let’s just start the new acting and see what happens.

Ron (48:14):

Okay, so Brian’s point about calling a timeout, that’s a good thing to remember when we get upset. It just turns out it’s really hard to do when we’re agitated.

Gayla (48:24):

It’s hard to do. I mean, we are sinful people and our natural tendency is going to be to just react in ways that might not be healthy.

Ron (48:35):

Gayla, I’ve been on a bit of a journey just learning and studying some things, and I got to tell you something really interesting. It fits in here. I mean, you and I have been walking in the marriage and family field for a very long time. We know all the stuff that’s out there. We try to stay current and there’s been great teaching in the Christian community for the last 50 years about marriage for example, and all of it that teaches skills in particular—how to communicate, do this, say this, don’t say it that way, that kind of stuff—it all takes self-control. Do you know how many resources there are that actually teach people self-control? I can’t find one.

Gayla (49:14):

Really?

Ron (49:15):

We have assumed people can do the things we teach them to do because we assume they have the ability to put on self-control, but we haven’t actually taught people how to have self-control.

Gayla (49:25):

Wow.

Ron (49:26):

I’m fascinated by this because the Bible is replete with things that talk about putting on self-control.

Gayla (49:31):

Yes! That’s a fruit of the Spirit.

Ron:

It’s one of the fruit of the Spirit.

Gayla (49:34):

Right.

Ron (49:36):

We have passages that talk about prepare your mind and put on self-control. Like wow, this thing is clearly something we need to do.

Gayla (49:45):

Yes.

Ron (49:46):

So Brian’s take a timeout, requires self-control to go, “Whoa, I need a break.”

Gayla (49:53):

It does. Right.

Ron (49:54):

But it’s also an opportunity to gain self-control. If Nan were here, she would tell you that she’s much better after she breathes. She goes for a walk. She smells the air and sees the sky. That somehow that is a reset for her. It helps her regulate self-control so that she can then come back in and we can have some hard conversation when we need to do that. Finding your little niche, your way of “taking a break” in order to put on self-control is really important.

Gayla (50:25):

And I think that if we’ve raised kids, we’ve had to learn to do that. We ask them to take a timeout.

Ron (50:29):

Well, we tell the kids—we tell them that, hey, put on some self-control. But how do they do that? We got to teach them how.

Gayla (50:38):

We do have to teach them how. But then for some reason we don’t carry, it doesn’t carry as much weight in a marriage that this is the same concept.

Ron (50:46):

Oh gosh. It is the exact same concept. James 4:2, “You desire but you don’t have, so you kill.” We taught this at Blended and Blessed last year. This is a concept we teach about in the book The Mindful Marriage. Let me read it again. “You desire but you don’t have, so you kill.” In the clip we just listened to, I mentioned that feeling entitled to our reactivity no matter who it hurts, like, you’ve upset me, therefore I’m entitled. We call that destructive entitlement. And culturally we see that left and right on Twitter and Instagram and—

Gayla (51:20):

It’s gotten worse honestly.

Ron (51:21):

—all over the news. You’ve upset me, you’ve violated my rights and all kinds of reasons that people then feel like they can just be bad rather than no, no, no. I’m still called to love in this moment. Love my enemy. I’m still called to be measured in how I respond in this particular—but this is difficult stuff.

Gayla (51:45):

Yeah, I think it comes back to pride. Entitlement is linked to pride.

Ron (51:51):

Good point.

Gayla (51:52):

And we have to consider, man, there’s all kinds of stuff in the Bible about pride goeth before a fall and God is going to discipline us with pride, but that’s really what entitlement is.

Ron (52:03):

Wow. Yep. That’s so very good. That little hook we teach in The Mindful Marriage. What I know about me, this is the moment. This really helps me slow down and go, okay, I’m out of sorts. I’m losing it. My brain’s going a hundred miles an hour. I’m really wanting to blame, shame, control her and escape you right now. Nope, but I can’t do that. So what am I going to try to do? That little mechanism is my self-control mechanism. And everybody has got to wrestle through that so that we bring a better self to the next moment. If we just expect everybody else to get better, nothing gets better. That’s entitlement. I have a right to be upset. You need to get better. No, no, no. I need to get better. So we have a chance of getting better.

Gayla (52:56):

That is owning our part. That’s exactly what you’re talking about. And it’s all about asking the Holy Spirit to help us see our part and what we need to do to maintain self-control even in the midst of a heated moment.

Ron (53:13):

How does this tie in with ghosts? Let’s wrap it. It has everything to do with ghosts because once ghosts activate, once they start a thought process in you or a feeling in you, and the fear begins to rise, and the self-protection begins to kick in, for you to recognize your side and say, “Wait a minute, what I’m now bringing as a result of this little ghost moment is not love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It is self-protection. Selfish, more often than not. It is entitlement. It is so I got to take a deep breath. I got to get in charge of this moment, and I got to put on a better self, all of which is challenging and difficult and we need the Holy Spirit’s power, but this is taking off our old self and putting on our new self, and this is how the world becomes a better place.

Gayla (54:05):

And it starts with awareness because it’s going to be different for each of us. So it’s what we’ve talked about, just being aware of where are ghosts haunting us and what do we need to do about it?

Ron (54:17):

Okay, listener, viewer, we’ve covered a lot of ground. I hope that stimulates some thoughts within you. Pray about it. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see the hauntings that happen when they happen, to notice that, and then to help you put on some self-control about how you respond as a result. Gayla, it’s always grace—it’s always grace. That’s your last name. Gayla, it’s always great to have you in here with me.

Gayla (54:42):

That’s a good conversation, Ron. Glad to be here.

Ron (54:44):

Thanks for being here. Because we referenced it, I will mention The Mindful Marriage is available in the FamilyLife Store and wherever books are sold. So you can look that up or look in the show notes and we get you connected to it as well.

But what you need to do right now is go register for Blended and Blessed 26. Right now, just go do it. Blended and blessed.com, Saturday April 18th. It’s free. And tell a friend or put it on social media and let people know that you’re going to be there and invite them to join us as well.

Next time on FamilyLife Blended, I’m going to be talking with two widowed persons, Matt and Kari Perkins who met, fell in love and got married and still have found a way to worship through their grief. That’s next time on FamilyLife Blended.

I’m Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching. And thanks to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

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