Lies We Told Ourselves: Loss, Pride, Addiction in Marriage–and the God Who Saves: Ron & Nan Deal

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Lies We Told Ourselves—Loss, Pride, Addiction in Marriage—and the God Who Saves

Guests: Ron and Nan Deal
From the series: Marriage Secrets That Almost Broke Us (Day 1 of 2)
Air date: March 9, 2026

Dave (00:00):
Okay; real quick—you got to join us on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise,
February 13-20 in 2027—you don’t want to miss it.

Ann (00:08):
There’s a sale going on, right now, through March 17th. This is the time to sign up.

Dave (00:13):
Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the banner. We’ll see you on the boat.

Nan (00:20):
I would look at myself in the mirror, and say, “You’re a mess.” I would just think about: “What’s happened to you? Who are you? I know my heart is as black as coal; I know it’s as hard as a stone, God. I don’t even know if You would take me back at this point; or if You could even create a clean heart in me. I have no clue.”

Dave (00:50):
Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (00:57):
And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave (01:10):
I think every marriage carries quiet, silent hurts.

Ann (01:16):
—and disappointment.

Dave (01:17):
We don’t always talk about them, but I know I was disappointed; and I carried around hurt that I never verbalized. I had no idea—I actually thought you were good, because I’m such an amazing husband—that you’re carrying around, for decades, hurts.

Ann (01:35):
—just wounds from the past—not feeling worthy and not realizing—because we get so busy in our marriages and our lives; many of us are parents, or we have blended families, and we’re just trying to get through the day—not realizing some of those disappointments, pain, and hurts are being hidden or pushed down; and they’re affecting every part of our lives.

Dave (01:58):
And when they come out, it can go one of two ways: it can split the marriage up, or it can bring a bond that’s deeper than it ever would’ve gotten to if it was always hidden.

Ann (02:09):
But it’s hard to get there.

Dave (02:12):
And today, we get to walk through a pretty remarkable story that we got to hear at a dinner table one night in Little Rock, with Ron and Nan Deal, who are in the studio with FamilyLife. It feels weird saying, “Welcome to FamilyLife Today,”—because you’re such a part of FamilyLife—but: “Welcome to FamilyLife Today, guys!”

Nan (02:31):
Thank you.

Ron: Thank you.

Ann: You guys, we love your honesty; thank you for sharing this. I think we all need to hear it, because we’re all living in places that it hasn’t been easy. In the church, sometimes, we don’t always say that.

Dave (02:42):
And in FamilyLife—I mean, Ron, you’re known as the Director of FamilyLife Blended.

Ron: And that means: “I’m perfect,”—

Dave (02:49):
That means: “You’re perfect.”

Ann: We all have you on a pedestal.

Ron (02:50):
—”perfect marriage.”

Dave (02:51):
In some ways, that’s what people think, even though you never said that. As I pastored, I would be amazed; people would come up to me, and say, “We want your marriage.” I’m like, “Do you not listen to what we say?! Because all we do is tell you the problems.” But because there’s a mic, or because you’re on stage, or you wrote a book, people think, “Well, your marriage has struggles; but nothing like ours.” No, yours was really—

Ron (03:14):
That’s right.

Dave (03:15):
—struggling. So here we are. I’m guessing—you’re married—I don’t know how many years—you’ve got three boys. You’re living sort of separate lives: from Ron’s, killing it in ministry; Nan, you’re at home, stuffing away, and feeling unseen. Take us from there.

Ann (03:30):
And yet, you still love one another.

Nan: We do.

Ron: Yes.

Ann: But you are angry, Nan.

Nan (03:33):
I think there were seasons, where Ron would really try. I would go to some conference, or I would be in some Bible study. I think I tried to break free, at least, six times—

Dave (03:46):
Break free of?

Nan (03:49):
—in a Bible study—doing this Bible study called Breaking Free or Finding Freedom.

Ann (03:55):
Oh, Neil Anderson stuff.

Nan (03:57):
Just trying so hard, and leading in some ministries myself—in children’s ministry, or VBS, or what have you—I would really think, “Okay, I want to do better. I want to be better for him.” And I’d always get back into that same rut. Like I said, we had this ugly dance.

Ron (04:18):
And likewise, I felt convicted, doing the work that I was doing, constantly looking at myself, going, “Okay, I need to alter this/change this.” I would say, the first ten years, I was really blind to me. The next five years, I was, “Oh, wow; I got work to do. I need to start recognizing some things that I’ve come out of my family with: ‘Why do I think that?’ ‘Where’s that coming from?’”—doing a lot of self-analysis.

But we never really put all the pieces together. I don’t think I ever really owned my pride, and just how much I was driven; and how that became “the other woman,” so to speak—my work and my drive.

Nan (05:00):
We moved to Amarillo—and same thing—going and blowing; going and blowing, even harder.

Ron (05:05):
And we had financial demands, so I felt like I had to travel/work harder.

Nan (05:09):
And the boys are on the cusp of preteen. I remember going to another one of those conferences—a ladies’ conference—and feeling convicted to say something to him again: “Maybe, he’ll hear me this time: ‘Ron, this is too much; this is off the chain; we’re here.’” And I’d always get that: “I’m doing this for God! What do you mean?”

But this weekend was different: I had packed a bag. I waited until the boys were asleep; and I said: “It’s you or me, Buddy,” “It’s you or me; I’m not doing this anymore.” He fell to his knees, and said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Ann (05:43):
How old were your kids at that point?

Nan (05:44):
Eight, ten, and twelve. He calls a friend, Terry, in town; but he’s got a two-year waiting list. I said, “I don’t care; you or me.” So he calls him; and the next day, we’re in his office. That is God’s grace—

Ron (05:59):
Absolutely.

Nan (05:59):
—and mercy.

Ron (06:00):
We are evidences of God’s grace, over and over; and that was one of those moments.

Nan (06:04):
Because this is two years before our son passes away. We go in—and that first session, I looked at Ron; and I looked at Terry—and because Ron picked him out, I said, “Okay, we’re going to go in here; but no funny business between the two of you, layman’s terms, layman’s terms.” It was a beautiful thing—because Terry nailed Ron’s patootie to the wall, during that first session—it was so beautiful to watch.

Ann (06:32):
What did he say? What do you mean by that? What happened?

Ron (06:35):
May I tell that?

Ann (06:36):
Please do.

Ron (06:37):
We walked in the first session. Nan started talking; and for 20 minutes, talked about how lonely she was.

Nan (06:45):
He allowed me to go first, which was so kind.

Ron (06:48):
She laid it out; I sat and listened. And even, then, in my head, I was doing the: “Yeah, but…”—the “Yeah…” defensiveness that I’m so good at.

Terry just looked at her; and did a simple little reflective statement: number one, he pinpointed Nan’s deepest bruise—abandonment—and number two, he showed me how arrogant I was. He just simply said, “So Nan, what you’re telling me is the reason Ron threw you under the bus”—abandonment—”is because God told him to.”

Instantly, I was cut to the heart. I knew, in that moment, God would never tell me to do that; but that’s what I’ve been claiming. That’s what I’ve been falling back on, and I am really wrong. I don’t even know how to begin; how I’ve got to wrestle with this whole thing. That led me down a road of studying pride and humility, which is something we still talk about every single day of our lives. I was deeply convicted; I had no idea where to go at that moment.

Nan (08:06):
And you cried that session, hard. I had been so hurt, that you would think that that would’ve melted my heart. I just sat there; and in my pride, thought, “Good, now, you’re getting yours.”

Ann (08:20):
—“finally.”

Nan (08:21):
—“finally.” That was the beginning of Ron’s humbling.

Ann: Did you apologize, Ron?

Ron (08:28):
Oh, yeah; over, and over, and over again. But even—fast forward another 15/20 years from that moment—I still apologize; I still find those parts of me.

Nan (08:44):
I think we both are.

Ron (08:45):
I’m like, “Oh, man; there it is again.” It’s not over; this journey’s not over. God’s still sanctifying us.

Dave (08:55):
But the story isn’t: “Okay; that one session did it.”

Ron (08:59):
Well, it was a healing moment; and it began to turn a corner. But we still had trust issues; we still had hurt, and anger, and resentment, and a lot.

Nan (09:08):
Two years, Terry worked with us. He looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Man, this brokenness, this woundedness, this family of origin, these wounds that you have,”—because one day, I said, “I hate that passage in Psalm 139: ‘For I’m fearfully and wonderfully made; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.’” I said, “Okay, I got the wrong womb. Why did God choose that one?! I’ve been trying to scrape this whole deal off from my whole life.” And Terry said, “If you would allow God to heal that, it will be the most beautiful part of you.” I sat there, and I said, “What are you saying?! I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

And then, two years later, our son, Connor, passes away; the bottom drops out. [Emotion in voice] I’ve never felt more abandoned in my life by God—I’ve got a truckload—I really feel like it was a straw that broke the camel’s back, for me. It was a truckload of abandonment, on abandonment, on abandonment. We did everything right—this is the son that I am connected to—this is our life here. I’d never known such pain; I’d never known such anguish. I’ve never known such heartache, and I didn’t know how to do it.

Ann (10:36):
So you went from: “My family’s abandoned me; my husband’s abandoned me”; but now, “God has abandoned me.”

Nan (10:45):
—and: “You’ve taken something so sacred; something that I was really good at and something that brought me so much joy.” I would cry out to Him, and I’d hear nothing; I’d feel nothing. There were times when I wanted to take my life; it’s just one of those heartaches, like none other.

At the beginning, we grieved together; we were thrust together. For four years, we were just together. It was/I felt like I, in some ways, had gotten my husband back.

Ron (11:22):
I want to add, think about the significance of that again, in hindsight. We were reeling from the loss of our 12-year-old son, and the gap between us had been closing; but now, out of pure survival, it had to close. It had to just completely close; everything else in the world stopped mattering. We’d talk about how—

Nan (11:44):
Ron didn’t want to travel.

Ron (11:45):
—grief recalibrates you. All the things that we kind of selfishly pursued in the world, all of a sudden, seemed stupid and dumb, at that point in time. And other people were dumb, because they’re worried about their little flat tire. “Well, that’s not a problem. You want to talk about problems?—we can talk about…” It sort of pushed everything in the world away from us, and thrust us together. For four years, we grieved together.

Nan (12:11):
We were saying the same things; we were feeling the same things. I would say something, very angry and upset; and he’d go, “Yeah, me too!” And I’m like, “Really?! Oh, my gosh; I didn’t know you could feel that way.” I just felt like I had a partner in this.

I also need to say that we had some very well-intentioned friends who had left alcohol in our home, after the funeral, and said, “Hey, if you ever need to just take the edge off, we left you something.” We weren’t teetotalers—but maybe, an anniversary or a birthday; one glass—it wasn’t a regular thing for us. What started out as: “Okay, I think that might help; I want to try that,”—because the pain was so intense; and prescription medication to help sleep, help the anxiety, help the depression became a full-blown addiction for me and an abuse of all of those substances—what started out very innocent was a 12-year numbing problem for me.

Ann (13:26):
Ron, did you have any idea?

Ron (13:28):
Yes and no. Yes, I knew she would have a glass of wine before going to bed at night. No, I didn’t know: after I went to sleep, she’d get up and have three more.

Nan (13:38):
He didn’t know the extent of all the medication I was taking, on top of that.

Ron (13:43):
And we didn’t know—neither one of us knew—the drug interaction between the alcohol and the prescription meds. That was a really toxic sort of thing.

Nan (13:51):
Anybody who has dealt with substance abuse knows: once you do a certain amount, you have to up the ante; because once you get to a certain level,—

Ron (14:00):
—tolerance.

Nan (14:00):
—the tolerance is there. Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t know that alcohol and these prescription drugs, and other things that I was trying to take to sleep, is causing that vicious cycle of you can’t sleep; your anxiety is worse; your depression is worse.

Honestly, after four years, our grief journeys took a turn; and Ron went another way. I was still ruminating and circling in my grief and anger. There was a day—one day when Ron just said, “Yeah, babe—

Ron: “I don’t know what to do.”

Nan: “I don’t know what to do with this. You keep going; you’ve got to not keep doing this.” And I heard—

Ron (14:43):
—”You’re doing it wrong.”

Nan (14:43):
“You’re doing it wrong.”

Ron (14:44):
—which is what I said to her for years, and years, and years, early in [our marriage]. It sounded very much like the exact same thing.

Let me run this by you: I think how grief separated—I don’t know; this seems a little simplistic—but I was trying to figure out how to move toward God.

Nan (15:03):
Yes, you were; yes, you were.

Ron (15:05):
After year five or so, in the grief and sadness, you were resentful and angry—and felt abandoned by Him; He was unsafe—so why move toward Him?

Nan: Right.

Ron, That, just inherently, put us in very different places, where we kept trying to close that gap, and love on each other, and serve each other well. There became antagonisms in the midst of that, and challenges; and then—

Nan (15:33):
Well, and to be perfectly—

Ron (15:34):
—the escalation of behavior.

Nan (15:36):
—frank: he took the job here [FamilyLife Blended], which was a huge platform, a big stage. Everybody loved him; he’s the expert! And my [thoughts]—“Don’t wake that dragon,”—because Terry had kind of calmed that down. I started to see Ron change; and then, he was at my side at a very heartbreaking time. And then [after moving to FamilyLife,] it’s: “You’re not doing grief right”; and “I’ve got a platform, and everybody in this building loves me.”

Let me just tell you: it got ugly, and the drinking got worse—that bitterness and the anger—really, I had my hand up to God: I didn’t want to hear Scripture; I didn’t want to hear songs; I closed myself off to everything that had any light in it. I believe that’s the season when the enemy took a foothold—not just a foothold; he took up residency—because anything Ron said/anything that was done, inside of me, I am just angry.

Ann (16:48):
Tell me: “What was going on in your head? What were the thoughts that would come to your head?”

Nan (16:52):
“If only you all knew—

Ron: —”what he had done, what he was capable of.”

Nan (16:55):
—“what he had done, what he was capable of, how he’s hurt me.”

Ann (16:58):
And what were the thoughts that you were feeling about yourself?

Nan (17:02):
“You’re a mess.” There were a couple of times that I tried to quit, and I had so much withdrawal. I thought, “Okay, great, Nan; your husband’s got this huge platform, this big ministry. He’s this—everyone loves him—and you’re going to have to go to rehab. You’ll ruin his career; you’ll ruin his name.”

Ron (17:26):
And ironically—I just have to add—earlier in our marriage, I would’ve been so angry and devastated about that; because it would’ve reflected negatively on me, I think. That’s the way I graded myself. But ironically, at this season of our marriage, I could care less. I wasn’t worried about any of that. And yet, we couldn’t come together around what was needed for her/for us.

Dave (17:52):
Did you know it didn’t matter to him, at that point?

Nan (17:53):
No.

Dave (17:54):
Because you kept it quiet.

Ron: Yeah.

Nan (17:56):
Right. And my boys—I’m empty nest—I’ve got one that’s moved off, and one who’s in college. If he did travel, I’m at home with the dog; and I can drink as much as I want; or I can just numb.

Ann: —totally hiding.

Nan: —totally hiding, totally hiding. I would look at myself in the mirror, and say, “You’re a mess. You either need a mental hospital; you need rehab.” I would just think about: “What’s happened to you? Who are you?” It was about 2019 when I was white-knuckling it to work. I was just like, “I know my heart is as black as coal; I know it’s as hard as a stone, God. I don’t even know if You would take me back at this point; or if You could even create a clean heart in me. I have no clue.”

I was spiraling in 2019; it got ugly. The amount that I was drinking and taking was awful, and I wasn’t eating a whole lot. And I know I wasn’t; I just felt like I was just a toxic mess. There were times when I wanted to say something to Ron, but I just didn’t even know—I felt so ashamed; I hated myself—I hated myself for thinking those things, saying those things in my head, ruminating over those things. It’s like I couldn’t unhook from the pain. I felt it 24/7—of the grief, and the loss, the abandonment—I felt like I had made a mess of my life, and I didn’t know how to stop. I tried a couple of times, and I didn’t know how to stop. I didn’t know who to turn to for help.

Ron (19:44):
On my side: I was wrestling, constantly, with: “How do I love her?” “How do I serve her?” “What can I do?” and “I don’t want to be near this person; I don’t like her at all.”

Nan (19:58):
I could feel that.

Ron (19:59):
I loved her. I’ve told her I never stopped loving her, even in the worst of those moments. But I didn’t like her, and I didn’t know what to do.

Ann (20:07):
And you didn’t know there was an addiction?

Ron (20:09):
No, I didn’t know there was that drug interaction thing that was going on. I just knew she wasn’t sleeping well—and memory loss—there were things she was doing that she didn’t have conscious awareness of because of the drug interaction.

Nan: I was an angry person, yes.

Ron: Neither one of us were really keen to all that was going on, below the surface, in this period of time. And then, something great happened—

Nan: —COVID.

Ron (20:32):
—COVID.

Nan (20:36):
COVID: Ron goes on a five-day trip. He prefaced—which I took it wrong, of course—he prefaced: “Hey, I’m going on this five-day trip. I’ve got this, this, and this; I’m not going to be very much available to you.”

Ron (20:47):
That was me trying to serve her, and let her know what was coming; because—

Nan (20:50):
All I hear is: “So, hey, I’m not going to be available; because I got to serve all these other people and do my wonderful stuff,” and “You’re not as important.”

That day, he leaves, I get sent home from school. I’m good at what I do, and I love teaching; and I’m really good at what I do. I get sent home. When Ron travels, I get all of my dinners set up; and I get all of my people lined up so that I’m not alone, because Nan can’t be alone with herself because she can’t trust herself. Everybody’s canceling on me because of this COVID thing: “Well, I can’t come to dinner,” “No, I can’t come this weekend,”—my sister can’t come; a friend can’t come. I am left alone, and he’s unavailable. I go on the biggest bender; I am bottoming out.

He calls me, at one point, on one night; and we get about five minutes: “Well, I’m in between things.” I put a hole in the wall that night. He alluded to, earlier, there were things that I was taking, and amounts that I was drinking, that would cause me to not remember certain things that I would do. I’m calling him multiple times, leaving messages; calling him over, and over, and over, as he’s trying—like 51 times, at one point—I’m calling my boys; I’m threatening to hurt myself.

Ron (22:13):
I’m getting a call from one of our sons, saying, “Mom’s scaring me to death.”

Nan (22:17):
My daughter-in-law’s saying, “You need to go up there and take care of your mom.” And I’m totally unaware of all of it. And then, I wake up that Sunday morning; and the boys are calling me. I totally have tortured my family all weekend long. And Ron comes home from that trip; and the look he gave me was,—

Ron: — “I don’t know who you are.”

Nan: I thought it was over; and I knew, with myself, it was over. I just didn’t know what to do. I just was at bottom.

Ann (23:09):
You are listening to FamilyLife Today. I know that we just ended on a cliffhanger, and you want to know: “What happened?!” It’s a powerful story. Their book is called The Mindful Marriage that really walks through their whole journey. The subtitle’s: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself.

Dave (23:32):
I would encourage you to go, right now, to FamilyLifeToday.com; and click on the link in the show notes, and pick up their book.

But also something that Ron and Nan lead is our blended ministry, here at FamilyLife. Every year, they do a Blended & Blessed conference that you can livestream from your home.

Ann (23:50):
—for free!

Dave (23:51):
Yeah, it’s free. You can watch it and experience that conference. You can actually go to it [in person] if you want. You can register at FamilyLifeToday.com, and click on the link in the show notes there. What an amazing thing: to be able to sit in your own family room, with your spouse, and be a part of a conference, that’s [addressing] the world we live in. That guy can impact your marriage, right there in your home.

Ann (24:13):
And I don’t know if you have checked out the blended ministry that we have, here at FamilyLife. If you’re in a blended family, we have so many tools for you that can help you with parenting, with your marriage, with so many things.

Dave (24:27):
So again, you can get the link for the book in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com; just click on the link. And also, check out the conference there as well.

Ann (24:35):
And we’ll be back and finish Ron and Nan’s story tomorrow. See you then.

Dave (24:45):
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