Unpacking Emotional Baggage: Ron & Nan Deal

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FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson – Web Version Transcript

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Unpacking Emotional Baggage

Guests:Ron and Nan Deal

From the series:Mindful Marriage (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:January 7, 2025

Dave:I’ll tell you one of the greatest moments of my life was that guy who came up to us, at the Hershey Weekend to Remember® conference, and asked us to rip up his divorce papers.

Ann:That was the greatest moment.

Dave:That was incredible. And it was so incredible because he didn’t want to come to this conference. His wife sort of made him come; and he said, “I’ll go just Friday.” But he ended up liking Friday night; stayed through Saturday and Sunday morning, and said, “God did a miracle. We were going to get divorced tomorrow on Monday, but God did a miracle. We’re going home with hope and a plan.”

Let me tell you: that’s what happens at FamilyLife Weekend to Remembers all over the country.

Ann:And you might be intimidated, thinking, “Are we going to have to bunch up and talk to people?” No, this is just the two of you. You’ll be sitting with people; but it’s just the two of you interacting—mostly listening, laughing—digging into some areas, maybe, that you just haven’t had time to talk about. This conference can change marriages for the better.

Dave:Yeah, we’re going to tell you: “Right now, you can sign up and get

50 percent off—right now through January 20—50 percent off your registration.” I would just encourage you: “Go to FamilyLifeToday.com right now; click on the banner and sign up for FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember. Or if you want to give us a call, call us at 800-358-6329. That’s 800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and the word, TODAY.”

Nan:It is a humbling surrender of: “I cannot do this my way anymore. I cannot do this my way. I think it’s Ron who’s going to fix it; or I need him to fix it; or I need my family to fix it; or I need circumstances to be fixed and changed. No God, I need You to fix me and help me heal me.”

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

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

Dave:We are back in the studio with Ron and Nan Deal, talking about their messed-up marriage. No,—

Ann:—they’re speaking directly to us.

Dave:It felt like a mirror yesterday—

Ann:It did.

Dave:—when you talked about your marriage. If you didn’t listen yesterday, I think you should pause; go back; listen to yesterday. Because there’s so much—not only in your story—but you laid down a lot of help for people to understand what’s going on in their life—luggage; pain—the things we bring in.

Ann:Ron, kind of go back and give us an overview for those that didn’t hear the whole thing—just a quick overview—of what we need to do as we walk—

Dave:Do that in 15 seconds.

Ann:—what we need to know as we walk into today’s conversation.

Ron:All of us carry a little residue on our heart from painful interactions in our life, whether it be from childhood or from a difficult relationship; and that changes us. Your brain is always learning, and so it’s always learning how to react or cope with the pain that we feel. You develop some patterns in how you deal with pain, going forward. Most of us have no awareness of how deep that is or how much it influences how we react and respond at one another in relationships.

So we’re part of the problem—not the whole problem—but we’re always part of it.

Ann:“We” meaning ourselves, not our marriage.

Ron:Correct.

Dave:—and not our spouse.

Ron:And most of us spend our entire marriage, I’m convinced, trying to get our spouse to be for us something that will take the pain away.

Ann:Wait; that’s not bad?

Ron:It’s just impossible!

Ann:That’s a good way to say it. But we try our whole lives—

Ron:—our whole lives to get our spouse to be for us something that satisfies the pain in my soul that I’m carrying.

Pain’s a heavy word; but just think of it as: “When I feel unloved, and when I feel unsafe, I need you to fix that in me. So I’m going to try to get you to do what I need you to do.” And we use four basic strategies: blame, shame, control, or escape. And when that doesn’t work, then we just feel worse and the us-ness of our relationship suffers.

Dave:If someone wasn’t really clueing in yesterday—and just heard you say, “There’s four ways we cope,”—they’re like, “I want to know what I do.” I’m telling you right now: you can go to FamilyLife.com/MindfulMarriage—that’s the name of Ron and Nan’s book—and you can take the assessment. We did it before we brought you in here, and it was enlightening to know.

I mean, there’s shows on TV that we watch—well, we shouldn’t watch, but I’ve watched a few times—The Bachelor; The Bachelorette; now, there’s The Golden Bachelorette—I guess it is; I don’t know. But you’re watching these people do exactly what you just described: “I’m going to find the person who brings happiness to my life.”

Ron:And we all do this; every person on the planet does this.

Ann:We were in the car, a few weeks ago, with a couple; he’s a CEO at a hospital. She paid/she worked him through med school; and then she said he was never home; he was always working. “We had baby after baby; and he continued, even after he had his degree.” He’s an MD; he’s a doctor. He’d have to work 13-hour days.

In my mind, I am thinking, “Are you kidding me?!” I would be so mad at him. I went through all the things in my head—“I would be mad,” “I would be resentful,” “I would blame him,”—I’m going through all this. And I said, “How did you feel about all of that?” And she said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Were you not angry that he wasn’t with you and the kids that time?” She said, “Why would I be angry? I was so thankful that he was working so hard and providing.” All I thought was, “I am so messed up!” But is that because she didn’t have something in her background that was being triggered?

Ron:Yes.

Ann:Goodness.

Ron:—which again, we said yesterday: “Follow the breadcrumbs on your pain. It’s trying to show you something about yourself. It’s trying to help you understand that there’s a hurt on your heart, either feeling unloved or feeling emotionally unsafe in the relationship.” You felt it before; your brain knows how to respond to it. And so you go to the same places you’ve always gone and do the same things you’ve always done.

Ann:And it feels right!

Ron:It does.

Ann:It feels justified.

Nan:Well, even in listening to that story, you went to shame—

Ann:Yes.

Nan:—shame about yourself.

Ann:Yes, yes; you’re right!

Nan:“Because I would’ve responded this way,”

Ann:—horribly; yes. “It must be”—

Nan:—we shame ourselves—

Ann:—“must be me; I’m broken.”

Ron:And the next question would be: “So when did I learn I was broken? When did I learn that I wasn’t enough?—that these things are about me.” Not that you have to chase that now, but that would be a really important journey to go on.

Ann:Right; oh, I’ve been on it; believe me.

Ron:Okay, so you probably can put a lot of words on that. And the point is: “Alright, now that I know this about myself—that when I feel this thing, I get triggered; and it activates a response in me of shame and, maybe, blame, control, or something else—or maybe, it’s just all shame; and then, where does that take me?”

“Well, what I do with that shame is retreat—pull away; blame myself—say, ‘I’m not good enough,’ and ‘I just don’t even want to be around Dave or anybody; because—

Nan: —get depressed.

Ron:—“’I’m feeling horrible; get depressed.’”

Ann:And this is what the assessment does.

Ron:That’s right!

Ann:It’ll help you to know what you do and where you go with it.

Ron:And here’s where this is all going: we’ve come to believe that this is—the Bible talks about your old self—we’re supposed to take off our old self, now that we’re in Christ, and put on our new self.

“What is the new self?” “Well, it’s the self [that] Christ has given us, now, that we’re redeemed and forgiven.” It’s just that it’s not fully realized; we’re still trying to shake off the old parts of us and put on the new parts of us. I think part of our old self is this ingrained, neurological: “This is what I do when I feel like I’m not enough,” or “…I feel unloved,” or “…I feel unsettled about life and my relationships. I react the same old ways that I reacted when I was six, because my brain knows this well.”

Nan:And we’ve done it so long that it feels normal.

Ron:You don’t have to think about it; that’s why it’s automatic. It’s truly reactive; that’s what dysregulation is. Literally, you’ve gone into a fight-or-flight response; and you’re not thinking. You’re not actually, going, “Oh, well, what’s God’s truth for me right now?” Because the prefrontal cortex of your brain has turned off. Literally, it’s turned off when you get triggered; and you’re now, reacting out of an old part of your brain, what we call the midbrain. All this stuff is not thought well through.

Have you ever noticed: you sit in church, or you’re sitting in a conversation with people; and you’re calm and settled. Somebody teaches you something; you go, “That’s exactly right; that’s going to change my life. I got to live that out.” And the moment you need it, you can’t do it. Why?—dysregulation. Your brain has stopped thinking, and has started reacting; and you always go to the same old stuff.

Once you know what the stuff is, now, you have a journey to figuring out: “How do I slow that down; grab a hold of that?” See, in my dysregulation, I want Nan to fix me; I want her to love me in a way that I don’t feel inadequate anymore. It will never happen; she can’t do it! She’s not that powerful enough. She might be able to make me feel good, for a moment; but as Dr. Hargrave says, “It’s cotton candy; it’s here and it’s gone in ten seconds,—

Dave:—fluff.

Ron:—”and it won’t last.”

What has to change is me; I have to change. I have to get more in alignment, in my mind—this is renewing the mind—this is Romans 12:2; this is Philippians 4; this is Colossians 3. This is most of Scripture in the New Testament: “I have to align my sense of identity, my sense of worth, my value with what God tells me about me; and then, and only then, can I get ahold of the worst part of me that’s been around for 50 years.”

Nan:I think the ruts and the places that we get stuck—Paul talks about the things that we continue to do, but we don’t want to do—are sometimes, our little “t” truths that we tell ourselves.

Ron:—lowercased “t.”

Nan:—lowercased “t.”

Ann:—lowercased “t” truth.

Nan:— truths. “If Ron would only stop…” “If I would’ve gotten these things from my parents…”—those are little “t” truths that I believed for the longest time. But it’s the capital “T” Truth of what God is saying—about my identity in Him—that I can take off this old and put on the new. Now, I may be doing that every day; but that’s how I walk out my life and in my relationships.

Sometimes, we say with people: “Why do they continue to do that? Why is she always stuck in that?” or “Why is he still doing that?” Because those ruts can be deep; and they can be ingrained, like Ron said. It’s just something that you’ve gone to for so long that it’s just second nature.

Dave:Now, how do you get to the point, where you identify that? Because as I hear you talking, I’m thinking about—even as Ann and I got married—there’s a belief, and I think it’s accurate; but it’s also, we don’t understand how wrong this belief is, even though we think it’s good. The belief is: “I’m new in Christ; the old has gone; the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5). We’re sitting—and we’ve shared this many times on stage—but we’re sitting at the Weekend to Remember, our first experience with FamilyLife, two weeks before our wedding.

Ann:—the marriage conference.

Dave:Yeah, the Weekend… And Dennis Rainey is on stage, teaching. It’s 1980, and we’re getting married in two weeks; [because[ we’re told: “You can’t get married [until] you got to go to this conference.” “Okay, we’ll go to this conference.” We’re probably 15/16 months new in Christ; we’re pretty new Christians. But our belief is: “The old is gone; we’re new.” So we’re sitting there—

Ann:I mean, the Bible says that.

Dave:Yeah!

Ron:It does, theologically. We also know, theologically, that while it’s true—we have new life in Christ in the sense that we are redeemed, forgiven, His children—we are His, period; end of sentence. It’s sort of like: “We’re children of God, but we’re not, yet, in heaven; we’re not, yet, living with Him. We’ve not, yet, fully experienced all that He has for us. We are working out our salvation every single day—a little bit more grace; a little bit more grace—becoming more and more into the image of Christ. But just because I get baptized doesn’t mean I come out of that water, fully walking, and looking, and acting like Jesus Christ.”

Ann:—positionally. As you said, we are theologically.

Ron:That’s right.

Dave:Well, talk to the person who was like us, thinking, “If I go back to some of the pain, and stuff in my past, it’s like I’m not walking in Christ. It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s therapy; I don’t want to go there.’” You know what I’m saying?

Ron:Yes, I understand. And the reason you go back to understand your old self is so you can put on your new self. You’ve got to understand where your triggers are, where you get dysregulated, why that happens and what it’s about, and the messaging so that you can get in alignment with God’s capital “T” Truth.

Nan:Jesus does that beautifully with the woman at the well. He goes into all of her past—her baggage if you will—her pain. He says, “Yes, you’ve done this, and this, and this; and right now, you’re doing this. But I want you to walk in a manner—

Ron:—”living water.”

Nan:“Go and sin no more, and be my evangelist to the Samaritan people.” He uses her—He uses her past; He cleans that up—and He uses her in the present. Her mess is her message; we say things like that all the time. He pointed her to that, to say, “This is where you’ve been, but here’s where I’m going to take you with Me.”

Ron:That’s a message we’ve heard and said on this program. People have heard it in sermons a thousand times. For me, what was missing was: “Okay, but now what? So I am coming to understand my past. I’m coming to understand how that’s impacted me and the residue it’s left on who I am and why I get triggered. ‘Now, what do I do with that?’”

Here’s one of the biggest “Aha!”s I’ve had in our journey of therapy, and writing this material, and teaching it to try to help other people understand it is: “We all want to say, as Christians, that God’s voice is the biggest voice in our life. We sit in church; we study His Word—we get the capital “T” Truth all the time—but here’s my ‘Aha!’ ‘My voice is not always in alignment with God’s voice, and my voice is the biggest voice in my head.’”

Ann:You hear it all the time, every day, over and over.

Ron:I talk to myself all the time, and I say, “I’m not enough.” That’s my automatic thought: “I’m not enough. So I’ve got excel, and work harder, and impress people; and then, I will be enough; and then, I will have Your favor; and then, Ron will be okay as a person.”

Not true—I know what God tells me about me—I know He says, “No, Ron; you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to perform for Me. You just are—because of the blood of My Son—you just are; You’re mine.” I know that, but I don’t live that because my voice dominates God’s voice.

Ann:That’s a good way to say it.

Ron:That is who we are, and that’s what’s automatic in my old self. So part of taking that off is recognizing that voice, and going, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s the truth?”

There’s four steps that we’ve learned to do to help us put on our new self.

The first two are all about:

“Who am I?”

“What’s going on with me, and why am I doing what

I’m doing?”

That’s steps one and two.

Three is:

“Wait a minute; what’s the truth?” “The truth is: ‘I am valuable.’”

For me, the truth that speaks to the lies that I’ve been believing: “The truth is that God loves me, that I’m empowered, that I have agency over life and that my performance has really nothing to do with my wellbeing. And the truth is, even though my wife’s upset with me right now, I’m still a person of worth.”

“Now, how do I act that way?” Step four is: “Well, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to calm myself, get ahold of my reactivity. I’m going to slow that down, even though she’s still mad. It’s not about what she’s doing; it’s about what ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness; what would gentleness look like in this moment?’ I just blew it.”

Ann:Let’s do it like this, Ron, because we’ve used the word: “dysregulated,” “triggered.” You guys talked about that in our last episode of how you were driving, and you both became triggered; dysregulated. We hear that word a lot with raising children, especially toddlers. They’re lying on the floor, having a tantrum; and we say, “My child is dysregulated.” We know what to do with our children: “Take a deep breath,”—we know these calming things.

We’re saying, as adults—we’re lying on the floor—that’s dysregulated; triggered; and that’s where we are. Right there, you’re in your head; you can’t get out of it. You’re saying, “Okay, as an adult, here’s what you need to do, as you’re dysregulated.” We’re at that extreme—think of the tantrum— like: “You’re in your head.”

Ron:It’s a perfect example and the irony is: what most of us do in marriage is we expect our spouse to be the parent, who comes along, and helps this little crazy child—

Ann:Yes; yes.

Ron:—find their sense: grow up and calm down. We are trying to get through blame, shame, controller, escape to get our spouse to fix us—

Nan:—which only escalates the fit [tantrum].

Ann:It escalates it, Nan!

Ron:I don’t know why she doesn’t want to be married to a toddler, having a fit.

Nan:The kicking gets bigger; the screaming gets louder.

Ann: Yes! Because they’re not doing it right!

Ron:Because they’re not doing it right: “You’re not doing for me what I need you to do.”

Nan:Right; “You’re not fixing me.”

Ron:Think about that imagery: “Who wants to be married to a screaming two-year-old?” That is exactly what I did [the other] night, when we’re getting in the car; and the wires won’t work, and I can’t plug my phone in. I become a two-year-old; it’s that crazy! And who is responsible for me in that moment?—not her!

Ann:Yes.

Ron:Guys, this is really important; because inadvertently, I think we have made some mistakes in the marriage and family field. We’ve sort of taught that: “If you meet your spouse’s needs, they will not be a screaming two-year-old ever. They will always be the perfect spouse that you want them to be.” Not true! It’s never been true; it’s not going to work. You might be able to get them to feel better about themselves for about half a second—it’s cotton candy—it’s gone. But the next time they get triggered, they’re going to go right back to being a two-year-old.

My job is to grow up in Christ; it’s my job to look in the mirror, and go, “Ron, what is going on with you? Get ahold of yourself. Nan’s still upset. You know what? It’s not the end of the world. I’ve got to start being an adult right now rather than the little child.”

Dave:Well, what we hear—and I know you hear as well—you walk off the stage after a talk, or whatever; and commonly I’ll hear, “I want to grow up, but I can’t because I’m married to him.”

Ron:That’s right.

Dave:—or “…her.”

Ron:You hear the blame?

Dave:“They’re preventing me; they’re blocking me.”

Ann:“Our marriage could be great if…”

Dave:Yeah, it’s always about the other; it’s not me. And you write about this. “How much of that is pride?” Because to do any of this, you’ve got to be humble.

Ron:Dude,—

Nan:—it’s 100 percent.

Ron:Yeah.

Nan:It’s 100 percent pride, for sure.

Ron:And that will always keep us looking at the other rather than looking in the mirror. It’s humility that allows us to look in the mirror.

Nan:Exactly.

Dave:That says, “I need to change. I am the problem.”

Ron:Yes; that’s right.

Nan:—and “God, You are the change agent. Help me. I need You.”

It is a humbling surrender of: “I cannot do this my way anymore. I cannot do this my way. I think it’s Ron who’s going to fix it; or I need him to fix it; or I need my family to fix it; or I need circumstances to be fixed and changed. No God, I need You to fix me; and help me to heal me.” I’ve asked Him to completely heal me of all of these pains; and we are on the journey, together, of that. I am learning to trust Him and surrender that to Him. He can’t go back and change things from age six; He can’t go back and change things in our marriage from Day One; but He is helping me see that: “I need You to trust Me in whatever you’re walking out.”

I think, for me, when I knew my pain and knew what I would continually do in my pain—that old Nan, that prideful Nan, that selfish Nan, that Nan who wants it her way—and she turned to: “But God, who am I in You?” And that I needed to surrender all of that, and trust Him in that; then, He shows me how I walk in the new. That, for me, has been freedom; freedom!

“Now, do I get dysregulated with Ron?” Sure! I did [the other] night in the car; and yet, it’s not a weeklong of shackles; and I can—

Ann:—and bitterness.

Nan:—I can see that old self, and go, “Wait a minute. No, not going back there; I know who that old person is. ‘God, I need You right now. I need You to slow my heart rate. I need You to slow my mind, and I need to pray to You: ‘Okay, in this moment, what do I need to do? I need to trust You.’” And I’m saying Scriptures that are important to me—Proverbs 3:5, 6, over and over again, that: “I need to trust in the Lord with all my heart,”—not what Nan wants in her heart.

Ron:—or not trust in Ron for her heart.

Nan:Right; exactly—”or in the circumstance, but trust in You. You’re going to direct my steps. Please direct my steps.”

I think, too, there’s a battle here. The enemy wants to kill us, steal us, destroy us, and isolate us. If we’re not connected to God, we’re just going to continue to go to that old, selfish, prideful self; and then, he wins with his tactics.

Ron:One piece that we haven’t talked about yet is: “You got to do something different.” The research is really clear: you can know the truth and not do it. That “renewing your mind,”—that language that we hear in the New Testament over and over again—actually comes through obedience.

It’s the obedience of doing something new and different in our understanding of God’s Word for how we respond in any given moment. It’s when I put on gentleness over, and over, and over, and over, in the midst of dysregulation, that I begin to undo my old self. I can’t just know it or think about it; it’s not just a cognitive understanding of what truth is. It is an experience of obedience. What does Hebrews say?—Jesus learned some things through obedience: obedience to the cross.

Wow! I mean, just chew on that for a minute. There’s something about changing the way we behave that helps to renew our mind. So it’s not enough to go, “Okay, yeah; I know I get reactive, and I need to stop doing that.” You have to actually do it; and you have to try, and try, and try, and try. So part of the process of The Mindful Marriage is actually being aware of your old self; what you need to do; and then, practicing and doing it. We tell people, in the book, to: “Practice when you’re happy,” “Practice when your relationship is good, when you can be—

Ann:What does that mean?

Ron:—”jovial about it.”

When you’re sitting in a restaurant, and you go, “Okay, so if I was dysregulated right now, what would I be doing?” And we just sort of go through/talk through the process, out loud, in front of each other when we don’t really have to do it. We’re not really upset.

Ann:Give us an example.

Ron:I kind of think [the other] night we did it; because we sort of recovered quickly—which, by the way, is our journey—17 years ago, when we first stepped into this space, we didn’t recover for weeks.

Nan:I said, out loud: “I’m so dysregulated right now. Can you tell?!” And he is like, “I am, too.” “Well, I’m going to start breathing. I’m just going to start breathing, and stay over here, in my lane.”

Ron:—and pretty quickly.

Ann: You’re saying this out loud?

Nan:Oh, yes.

Ron:And the reason you say it out loud, Ann, is because it sends a signal to the other person. See, if you spend a good part of your marriage, which while I think all of us do—trying to get the other person to fix you; and they’re trying to get you to fix them—then, your little rut; we call that the pain cycle—is so deep that it didn’t take anything at all before you’re in it. You can go from happiness to pain-cycle—

Nan:—in a nanosecond.

Ann:It’s the magnet: they draw you in.

Ron:Boom! You’re there; it’s so automatic.

So if you’re going to change anything, it’s helpful to signal to yourself, and the other person, you’re trying to do something different. So literally, saying out loud:

“Oh! Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know what’s going on with me: I’m feeling inadequate right now because I can’t get the stupid phone to plug in, and I’m super tired. What I usually do is I get all frustrated, and I throw the cords; and I just did. And what’s the truth about this? The phone has nothing to do with my worth or value; that’s just not even close to the truth. The truth is I am adequate; and in God, I’m worthy, and I’m okay. So what I’m going to do different right now…”

I’m saying all this out loud—

Ann:That’s awesome.

Ron:—in front of her. What we know, neurologically, about the brain is: “When

you force that out of your mouth, you are helping your prefrontal cortex to

turn back on. It turned off when you got triggered; it’s now turning back on,

because you’re forcing it back on.” In other words: “I’m putting on my new

self, right now; and I’m doing it out loud, which says to her, ‘Oh, Ron’s

trying to do something different. Ron’s trying to get ahold of himself. Ron’s

trying to put on humility about himself right now.’ And so that part of her—

that needed to fix me with criticism or control—can turn off; because ‘Ron’s doing Ron’s work; I don’t have to do Ron’s work, because Ron’s doing Ron’s work.’”

Now, that sounds simple. I’m just telling you: it is so deeply profound. The invitation for Nan in that moment is to go, “Yeah, and what’s my work?” And now, you have two people putting on humility. Everything changes at this point.

Nan:Because sometimes, if he’s dysregulated; and then, he’s doing that—“Well, I’m doing this; and I’m doing this,”—and I’m wanting to go, “Oh, yes, you are; and you always do.” I’m wanting to do his work for him, so to speak.

But I have to humble myself, and say, “Oh, he’s doing his work over here. I need to humble myself; do my work because, if I’m going to do his work—or shame him, or blame him, or control him when he’s doing his work and he’s actually allowing his spirit to change; and I don’t want to see that because of past pain, residue, resentment, bitterness—it’s unforgiveness; it’s just lingering. That’s doing nothing for our us-ness. I think that’s where we were for a long time.

Ron:Yes.

Dave:How long did it take you to get there? Because so many spouses, it’s a hard journey to get from: “My eyes are on him,” or “…on her. They’re not on me. He’s doing the right stuff, and I still am mad.”

Ron:Here’s my point of view about that. As a therapist, I’ve worked with couples; and I’ve seen them, in a matter of months, make the shift and really begin to put on new practices and new behaviors; that then, helps to solidify their us-ness and how they respond differently.

For us, our journey was a little different; because we started this 17 years ago; and then, our son died. That threw a big wrench in the whole process.

Nan:We had a complication in there.

Ron:And that set off a number of things that lasted a decade, in and of themselves, as we’ve talked before on this program. And then, that led to a miraculous moment, where Nan finally gave that up to the Lord. Her whole escape-into-alcohol thing had to come to a head; and she had to hit bottom, I guess is the way to say it.

Nan:Exactly.

Ron:And then, we were able to pick up our us-ness journey again. But in the meantime, let me say something, too: we’ve both had to do this with one another. A partner, who’s going, “I’m doing all this work, and my spouse doesn’t want to do any of this.”

Yeah, that’s part of our journey, where she was working on us; and I wasn’t. She was in the throes of escape, numbing; and I was over here, trying to go, “Who am I to be? I’m just called to love and do the best I can. I got to be dealing with me in the midst of the pain I feel about her.” I was so focused on trying to do my work that, in some ways, I didn’t know how to connect with her when her behavior was at its worst. And that was hard; it was just really difficult.

We struggled; and we struggled; and we struggled; and we just sort of kept coming back to: “But who am I called to be? Who am I called to be?” and “How do I do that as best I can?

Nan:I’ll be honest: after that, COVID was so good to me. The Lord met me in that season when I bottomed out. But I would say these last four years have been such a journey for both of us. But I would say it’s been four years of working hard at this, individually; and then, coming together, and seeing each other, and seeing each other’s pain. It’s been some hard work, but so worth it.

I see the hand of God—His grace and mercy on my life—I see Ron working so hard; and then, it’s just I feel like we’re in a season, where He is blessing us.

Ron:We feel His mercy.

Nan:Oh, just cannot articulate that enough! For me—I mean, people say, “Nan, you’ve written a book,”—“Well, three therapists and a chick got together”; that’s what I say. I am taking these very hard concepts—it feels like you’re going for therapy or an intensive—and putting them on the bottom shelf for people, like me, and marriages like ours. I just want people to have freedom—to be unshackled by their pain: the pain of their past, and behaviors—and things that the enemy just so wants them to be stuck in. I got stuck; I got a decade of being in pain; and I feel freedom, and I feel a peace. I want that for people.

Dave:I mean, that is so beautiful—“And we want that for everybody,”—that’s why you wrote the book! I mean, it wasn’t for you guys; it was to bless and help others. It’s already helped us, and we’re just studying it to do the show with you. We want to send you the book—send a donation to FamilyLifeToday.com—we will send you The Mindful Marriage. Or you can call us at 800-358-6329. That’s 800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word, TODAY.

Ann:And if you give any amount—any donation to FamilyLife—we will send you The Mindful Marriage book. And don’t forget: we have that free assessment that you can take. You can click that link, and go online to take it; that’s at FamilyLifeToday.com.

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