Relationship Trust: The Hidden Reason You Feel Distant–Ron & Nan Deal

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Relationship Trust: The Hidden Reason You Feel Distant

Guests:Ron and Nan Deal

From the series:Trust Issues: When Love Feels Risky (Day 2 of 2)

Air date:July 31, 2026

Ron (00:04):

When I’m reliable, when I’m doing my part, when I’m honoring commitments, when I’m showing up, when I’m bringing my best self as much as I can, when I’m revealing myself, transparency, when I am contributing to our relationship and doing my part, that’s going to create a climate where she and I both feel like, “Yeah, we’re in this, we’re both in this, we have value, we belong, and this relationship is protected and safe.”

Ann (00:38):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:44):

And I’m Dave Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

So we’ve got Ron and Nan Deal back in the studio. We’re going deep. We’re talking about stuff that is real in our marriages and families.

Ann (01:06):

But it’s also super practical. I think you’re going to really like it, and I know that you’re going to identify with a lot of the things we’re going to talk about today.

Dave (01:17):

All right. So you’ve got attributes of love on this pillar. I’m looking at this amazing drawing. I’m guessing you didn’t draw it.

Ron:

No, we didn’t. Didn’t come up with this.

Dave:

Under love, you got unique, worthy and belonging. You’ve mentioned a little bit but explain unique. If I’m loved, are you saying that I sense that I am so special and unique?

Ron (01:41):

Yes. That’s it. Uniqueness and specialness. Yeah. There’re a million people out there that could be your spouse, but this is the person you’ve chosen. This is the person. This is your child. I mean, we all feel that.

Nan (01:52):

Oh, definitely.

Ron (01:52):

That’s the thing that most of us really love and cherish is feeling unique to the person who loves us, feeling unique to our parents and making one another feel unique and reminding each other, “You’re the one for me.” Those kind of comments are the things that elevate our status. And within a relationship, that’s an important piece to feeling like you’re loved.

Dave (02:16):

It’s interesting in our marriage, when I feel like Ann celebrates my uniqueness—

Ron:

There you go.

Dave:

I mean, she didn’t for a long time and probably I didn’t deserve it. I honestly sitting here right now, I feel like you love how I’m quirky and weird and just who I am. She really appreciates it. I want to run home to that. Who wouldn’t? Is that what you’re talking about?

Ron (02:40):

That’s what we’re talking about.

Dave (02:41):

Have you guys gotten to that place?

Nan (02:43):

Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely.

Ron (02:45):

Absolutely. What I love about her, especially the transformation in her that is something that—I mean, when her eyes light up, she has the most beautiful green eyes. And I’ve always noticed that, but when she sparkles, it’s sort of like it just comes alive again in me and I just am so drawn to her beauty.

Nan (03:07):

And your uniqueness, the thinker that you are and oh man, the details in just travel, just coming here, the details into the travel and the planning and you’re always a step ahead.

Dave (03:24):

Now, how did you get from that bugged you—

Nan (03:26):

Oh, it drove me nuts.

Dave (03:28):

—to now you celebrate it.

Nan (03:30):

I worked on me and my pride.

Dave (03:32):

So it wasn’t him.

Nan (03:33):

No, it wasn’t him.

Dave (03:35):

I mean, maybe he got better at some of the edges, but it was you.

Nan (03:39):

It was me for sure.

Dave (03:40):

Yeah.

Nan (03:41):

It was definitely me. And it was a pride and it was a selfishness and I think angerness and bitterness that took root.

Ann:

Resentment.

Nan:

For sure. Resentment. Oh, for sure.

Ron (03:50):

The words I appreciate is speaking to uniqueness. “I appreciate the way you cook this meal.” “I appreciate the way you put pillows on our bed, even though I think it’s really unnecessary to make the bed every single day.” I appreciate—

Dave (04:04):

18 pillows.

Ron (04:04):

If you’re a parent, you’re thinking about your children and it’s complimenting, catching them doing something right. We’re really good at parenting and catching them doing something wrong. But attending to the good things that our children do spontaneously and go, “Wow, you just shared your toy with your brother. That’s fantastic,” that’s commenting on uniqueness.

Ann (04:23):

Well, I remember saying to our kids, and now I say it to our grandkids of just kind of snuggling with them of saying, “Can you believe there’s nobody like you in the whole world?” And there never has been.

Ron:

It’s so beautiful.

Ann:

And there never will be.

Ron:

That’s it.

Ann:

I’m like, “And we get to be with you. It’s like you’re so unique. Nobody and God has so many special things inside of you. We don’t even know about them yet.”

Nan:

Exactly.

Ann:

“It’s going to be so fun to see who God made you to be.”

Dave (04:50):

And you even think as a parent or a grandparent, they’re probably not hearing that when your kids walk out of your house.

Nan:

Definitely.

Dave:

They go to school, middle school, high school. They’re not being told. They’re being cut down because other people want to build themselves up.

Ann (05:02):

And they want to be like everybody else.

Dave (05:03):

And so they need a home where they can walk in and feel—there’s a word—safe.

Ron (05:07):

That’s it.

Dave (05:08):

They think I’m special here.

Ron (05:09):

So listen to our themes. Uniqueness speaks to their sense of identity. I’m somebody and I’m loved. That’s what this is driving at. Another word is worthiness. You feel worthy when people love you. You feel like you’re worth something. You have inherent value. Now, we all get this when we think about God and his love for us, and all the comments we have in scripture about that. Even on a human level though, it speaks to my value when you’re near me and you say, “I just want to hold your hand. Can we just sit and be together?” Those things, like I said that, Ann, and you smiled, it immediately warms something in you when you feel like, “Wow, they care enough about me to want to be with me, to be near me, to spend time with me.” All of that is speaking to worthiness.

Ann (05:59):

It’s funny, when we were in seminary, we had somebody do this healing kind of prayer, which was interesting. And so they did this thing—you could do this with your kids too—like picture yourself on a boat so you just see it in your mind and then picture all of a sudden, you hear Jesus call your name and you see Jesus on the water and then Jesus calls you to come to him. And so I’m like doing this—I think I was probably 22 years old—and I’m picturing it and Jesus says, “Come.” And in my thought, I couldn’t get close to Him. I couldn’t walk close to Him because I felt unworthy. And I think so many of us feel unworthy with God and then we don’t feel worthy anywhere. It’s like a little secret of our unworthiness that’s like a badge that we hide from everybody. But it was shocking to me that I couldn’t even get close to Jesus because I felt so unworthy because of my sexual abuse because I’m not worthy to be around the king.

Ron (07:02):

One of the things I love about the story of the woman at the well in John 4 and it’s a hidden element of this story.

(07:08):

That story is what we call a sentence starter. Anybody listening to John tell that story in the first century would have said, “Oh, we know this one.” The story starts, a guy goes to a well and he meets a woman. Now the Hebrew people, the Jewish people know that story. That’s how Jacob met his wife. That’s how Moses met his wife, like the great fathers of our faith. Oh, we love this one and she’s a worthy woman and he’s a worthy man and they’re going to do great things for the kingdom. But John’s story goes like this. A guy goes to a well and he meets a woman and she is unworthy and all the people would have said, “Whoa, hold up. We don’t like this story. This doesn’t make any sense to us. She has to be worthy.” That’s the point of the story.

(07:50):

Jesus makes her worthy. Every one of us is the woman at the well, in our shame, all alone, middle of the day, heat, no friends.

Dave (08:00):

Hiding.

Ron (08:00):

Hiding, we are her.

Dave (08:02):

Yeah.

Ron (08:04):

And He makes us worthy by His word, by the washing of the water, by what He offers. That’s the story that John wants us to pick up. And of course it’s difficult because in our mind, we’re unworthy. Why do we think we’re unworthy? Because life we’ve had relationships in this life that didn’t always affirm that worthiness. So again, we always have to come back to, who does God say about who I am?

Nan (08:29):

Or like you said, Ann, you had circumstances, very terrible circumstances happen to you. Or like me, the baggage I brought into the marriage was a lifetime of just feeling unloved, not being in a loving home that poured that into me. And those messages run deep. They run deep, they defined me and they also surrounded me with pain. And so then to allow myself to be loved by others, I was the defender of myself forever, especially with Ron because I learned to defend myself. I learned what I didn’t like and what I needed from people and what I wanted from people, but what I wasn’t getting. For me, coming into the relationship, I came in void of some of that in my life. And so I’ve really had to journey with the true source of that, like the woman at the well.

Ann:

Yeah.

Ron (09:30):

Belonging is the third element of love gives us a sense of identity and this woman at the Well Story, I mean, she immediately feels belonging. She was all alone at the beginning of the story. At the end of the story, she feels so confident. She runs back to town, starts telling everybody, “I met this guy.”

Nan:

How’s this missionary?

Ann (09:45):

And she’s an outcast. She doesn’t care.

Ron (09:48):

She’s overflowing. Why? Because now she’s family. She belongs. She knows who she is. She knows who she belongs to. Oh my goodness. I mean, that is such an important story. So when I claim my wife, when I say I would marry you all over again, that tells her she belongs. When I look at my children and I go, “Man, there’s nobody else. I mean, you’re it. ” Nan used to say our kids were day, night and dusk, three boys, all different personalities.

Nan (10:13):

They were.

Ron (10:14):

And that was their uniqueness, right? There’s the uniqueness. Their gifts and talents were different, and we would call those out and we would see those things and compliment those things and pull them forward as much as we could. And we would also claim them in the sense that you’re with us, you’re part of us, you’re ours and there’s nobody like you. That’s how we’ve end up coming to believe that I’m loved and lovable and that’s so important in childhood because that’s what we carry into marriage.

Nan (10:45):

If you do come from a family of origin where that was void, it was never given to you, or circumstances like you Ann where—

Ann (10:54):

Trauma.

Nan (10:54):

—trauma, God is a God of redemption. He is a God of hope. He is a God of love. He can redeem that. He can heal that and He can restore that and that is what you need.

Ann (11:08):

I remember being in prayer after doing some healing and therapy, but I remember having that picture again of Jesus reaching out his hand and I remember feeling like, “Oh, he died for me to be worthy. His blood has made me worthy.” And I felt like I had that picture in my mind of Him reaching out to me, me taking His hand and Him calling me “My beloved.” “Oh, I do belong. I am His. I am His.” And all of us want that sense of belonging.

Ron (11:40):

And it’s no mistake that God creates a thing called the church where we belong as soon as we come to faith and join the family of God. Like that whole community thing is super important to again, feeling, sense of love and where we fit.

Dave (11:56):

It’s interesting when you talk to pro athletes or anybody that’s been on a team and then retires after decades because I’ve talked to a lot of them and I’m like, “You miss the game.” “Not really.” “You miss Sundays?” “No.” “What do you miss?” Every single person I’ve ever asked that always say, “I miss the locker room. I miss the guys. I miss the community.” We did something together. It’s just that belonging. I had my identity. I was a part of something, and it wasn’t just me; it was us.

Ann (12:24):

And if you’re not in a local church that’s like a Bible preaching, like they are loving Jesus, you’re missing that belonging of the body, which we all need.

Nan (12:34):

Definitely.

Ann (12:39):

We want to hear from you.

Dave (12:41):

Yeah, like literally hear you.

Ann (12:44):

You can leave us a voice message with your questions, concerns, praise reports, or whatever.

Dave (12:50):

Or maybe you just want us to answer a question or explore a certain topic. Whatever you want to say, you get to call and say.

Ann (12:58):

All you have to do is go to speakpipe.com/FamilyLifeToday. Again, that’s speakpipe.com/FamilyLifeToday or get the link in the show notes.

Dave (13:17):

Okay, talk about safe.

Ron (13:18):

Okay. Trust. Trust is wrapped up and gives us safety. There’re three elements of that. There’s a sense of reliability in the relationship. Transparency is an element here and then fairness. Now that one’s a fun one to talk about, but reliability has to do with, can I rely on Nan to do what she says she’s going to do? And basically this is the big one in the sense of commitment. Is she really honoring commitments that she’s made to me and do I honor the commitments I’ve made to her? But it’s also the little things like you’re disappointed when they say, “Yeah, I’m going to pick that thing up for you at the store and bring it home,” and then they forget.

Dave (13:57):

Or “I’m going to be home at six.”

Ron (13:59):

And they don’t call.

Dave:

And then they never do.

Ron:

Now, if it happens every once in a while, reliability is still there. By the way, the Hargraves, Terry Hargrave and his wife, Sharon, they’ve kind of quantified this. They say 90% of the time, if you’re reliable, then we basically still have a trustworthy relationship; but a little bit less than 90% and all of a sudden, things call into question. Let me ask you this. If you were to go, ladies, to get your hair done and you walk out with a chop job, how often are you going back to—how many times would you give them another—

Ann:

I will never go back.

Nan (14:32):

Never, never.

Dave (14:33):

One time.

Ron:

See, one time. Reliability’s not there, you’re not going back. If you took your dog to get their haircut and they kind of didn’t do it so great, but the next time it was great, or they did five good and then one bad.

Nan (14:45):

Well, you’re talking to a dog lover, so I would not go back.

Ann (14:50):

I’m a dog lover too. I wouldn’t either, but yeah, but we get what you’re saying. You guys aren’t very graced being people because you’re talking about, yes, our hair and our dogs.

Nan:

That’s right.

Dave (15:02):

Well, let’s get real. What about an affair?

Ron (15:06):

Oh, now we’ve—

Dave (15:07):

The vow has been broken.

Ron (15:08):

Now reliability is gone.

Dave (15:12):

How do I trust?

Ron (15:13):

You don’t trust.

Dave:

Yeah.

Ron:

I mean, that’s the point is that it has been broken and lost and there is a massive repair process.

Dave (15:19):

Can I re—get your trust back?

Ron (15:22):

Absolutely.

Dave (15:23):

How?

Ron (15:24):

You’re going to earn it back one step at a time. You’re going to restore reliability. Okay. Now there’s a lot of things that are involved in that: confession and owning and taking responsibility for that.

Nan (15:36):

Being transparent, for sure.

Ron (15:37):

Being transparent. That’s the next element is transparency, which is, hey, we’re never going to have a relationship. Two people don’t ever fall in love with one another if you don’t ever open up about who you are. If you don’t show something of yourself. I mean, that’s integral to even the beginning of a journey, but ongoing in a relationship. It matters when she comes home at the end of the day and says, “How was your day, Ron?” And I go, “It’s fine.” How long are you going to live in a relationship where you get two words and nothing about their experience, what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking about life? You try to do parenting without—the other person never has an opinion about anything.

(16:15):

Where are you? I mean, without an open transparency, obviously there’s no substance. Back to rebuilding after an affair, you’re going to have to be completely transparent about who I was and what I did when I did. And I’m learning what led me down that road of vulnerability and I take full responsibility for that. All of that paves the way for you to then begin to start living a reliable life back to a new track record of trustworthiness and at some point, the spouse can begin to trust you again. I don’t get to decide, if I’m the offender, when you start trusting me again. I’ve got to have a long track record to prove that I’m on a new path.

Dave (16:57):

This pillar, reliability, trustworthiness or openness and transparency. And then what is fairness?

Ron (17:02):

Fairness is that there’s a give and take in relationships and we should be able to expect that we each do our part. Now this is not keeping score.

Nan (17:13):

I was just going to say it’s not keeping a ledger.

Ron (17:16):

This is not about, well, wait a minute, I’ve done nine good things for you lately and you’ve only done six for me and you need to step in.

Dave:

I do that every week.

Ron:

Which by the way, there’s a message in, if you find yourself keeping score, it’s telling you, you don’t feel safe.

Ann (17:30):

Do you keep score? Do you do that?

Dave (17:33):

No. No.

Ann (17:34):

Oh, I thought you were serious.

Dave (17:35):

I have felt that in our past and it’s really, I do everything around here. You do little around here. And she was right.

Ron (17:43):

What people are really asking is ultimately, am I safe in this relationship and am I loved? Because if you love me, you’ll do stuff.

Dave:

Get off the couch, help me.

Ron:

You’ll be part of the process.

Ann:

Team.

Ron:

Team. Exactly.

Nan (17:56):

Here was where I kept score. “Oh, you’re doing it for everybody else.”

Ann (18:00):

Oh, me too, Nan.

Nan (18:01):

“Oh my. Let me just tell you how many things you’ve done for so and so, and so and so, and this and that, and this and that, and I got one.”

Ann (18:08):

Yeah. I totally did that.

Nan (18:10):

And that just sent me into resentment every single time.

Ron (18:14):

Because you didn’t feel loved.

Nan (18:15):

I didn’t feel loved.

Ron (18:16):

See, it all tracks back to these two things. I’m telling you, everything tracks back to a question about love or trustworthiness and safety. So fairness though needs to be said. I can have a general expectation that Nan’s going to do her part. I mean, nobody enjoys a relationship—would you have a business relationship or a client relationship where you do 100% of everything and they do nothing. You provide the product and they never pay you. Nobody would stand for that. If you have a friendship where you’re the one who always calls, you’re the one who says, “Let’s get together,” and you make it happen. And then they never do. There’s nothing offered from the other side. A marriage that’s out of balance like that is not going to experience safety, friendships, et cetera. Parent-child relationships; I work with kids a lot who single parent homes or blended family homes and there’s been a disruption in the family story and one parent is now sort of MIA.

(19:10):

Guess what? That hurts a child’s heart. They can’t rely on you. We’re back to reliability and they don’t have a sense that you contribute what I should expect a dad or a mom to do. Likewise, parents expect certain things out of their kids. This is how you belong in this family. You do your chores and we do ours. So I think sometimes we get so scared of saying, “Well, nobody’s keeping score,” as if that means we don’t have a genuine expectation that we all contribute. Okay, what are we saying with all this? What we’re saying is when I’m reliable, when I’m doing my part, when I’m honoring commitments, when I’m showing up, when I’m bringing my best self as much as I can, when I’m revealing myself, transparency, when I am contributing to our relationship and doing my part, that’s going to create a climate where she and I both feel like, “Yeah, we’re in this, we’re both in this, we have value, we belong and this relationship is protected and safe.”

(20:10):

The point of all of this, guys, when I feel loved and safe, I flourish. Here’s the punchline. When I feel loved and safe, I give, give, give.

Nan (20:21):

I was just going to say.

Ron (20:22):

Self-giving love becomes easy. Sacrifice becomes easy. Surrender becomes easy because I’m safe in this thing. The minute I start doubting or call into question either love or safety, I start thinking how much I want to give. I start calculating whether or not, “Am I losing here? Do I want to—” It completely unwinds my flourishing, and it unwinds what I begin to offer into the relationship.

Nan (20:51):

I think when we’re both feeling that we both bring the best of ourselves to it. I mean, what you are good at, you are very good at an amazing provider. I’m more of the caretaker and the needs meter and I see those. You’re amazing at all the details that have to do with the home and the cars, and I couldn’t do all those things, and I wouldn’t want to because you’re better at that than I. When we come into that feeling, that love and that trust and that safety, we both bring the best of ourselves and then our usness is blessed by that. And I think that blesses our children and our grandson. I really do.

Dave (21:33):

How long did it take you to get there?

Nan (21:35):

Well, how—

Ron (21:37):

We’ve been married 40 years. 40 years. And we’ve kind of said, we had elements of this, and I think most couples do.

Nan:

Oh, we did.

Ron:

But then there’s these moments of doubt and concern. And then we had a season of our life, probably 10 years where—

Nan:

It was so dry.

Ron:

—we didn’t, neither one of us felt safe. Neither one of us—

Nan (21:53):

And neither one of us were trying.

Ron (21:55):

Right. So off and on, there’s been questions and doubts and concerns and at the same time, a whole lot of good. I would say it’s only been the last decade, maybe even less, that we have felt like we’re thriving.

Dave (22:10):

You’ve been married?

Ron:

40 years.

Nan:

40.

Dave:

Yeah. That’s why I asked that.

Ron (22:13):

And 30 years, spending time going “Wow.”

Dave (22:15):

I mean, ours has been similar in terms of, I would say the last 10 or 20 years, but it wasn’t the first 10.

Ron:

That’s right.

Dave:

And so I don’t want a couple that just got married to be discouraged, but I think you don’t figure this out for a while. It’s a struggle.

Ron:

You got to grow up into—

Dave:

That’s okay. In some ways, I had this image in my head, it’s like I’m a car with a full gas tank and I’m holding a gas pump right here. If my tank is full, I drive by every gas station. Why would I even look? But when it’s empty or even half empty—

Ron:

That’s right.

Dave:

I’m running out and I’m like, you’re just stopping everywhere to get feeling loved and feeling trusted. So it could be achievements, it could be whatever.

Ron (22:55):

Exactly.

Dave (22:56):

But when you—and I did this last night. Ann doesn’t know this. I mean, when I looked at her last night in the middle of night snoring—

Ann (23:03):

Was I snoring?

Dave (23:04):

Only because she’s got this really bad cold. She never snores, but I hear because she’s so congested and I look over at her and I’m like, “I am so in love with this woman.” That’s what I thought. And I feel so loved and I knew we were talking about this today and I felt safe. I feel safe. Now I couldn’t say that in year one through 10 maybe. I feel that. And when you said that just a minute ago, flourish, I feel like I’m the best man version I could be of myself and it’s because this woman loves me and trusts me in a way I don’t deserve. That’s the gospel.

Ron (23:41):

Part of the problem is that life has given us some imperfect relationships where we didn’t feel loved and safe with parents, family, maybe spouse, a former spouse. And so how do we rise above that and act better than we feel? That’s something worth talking about.

Dave (24:00):

Next time we get you back in here, we’re talking about that. And again, the book is The Mindful Marriage, and you can get it at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click on the link in the show notes and don’t just get one, get about 10. You’re going to want to share this with everybody you know. Trust me, when you read it, you’ll know what I mean by that.

Ann (24:17):

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Dave (24:33):

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