Married and Connected

Ep 143: Navigating the Complexities of Blended Family Life with Dr. Deana Thayer

• Kameran Al-Areqi • Season 11 • Episode 2

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Are you trying to figure out how to blend a family without breaking your marriage? In this episode of the Married and Connected podcast, host Kameran Alareqi sits down with Dr. Deana Thayer—author, speaker, and blended family expert from Focus on the Family. Together, they peel back the layers on the hidden realities of stepfamily dynamics, managing expectations, and protecting your relationship in the midst of family chaos.

Whether you are looking for premarital counseling for stepfamilies, navigating co-parenting hurdles, or trying to understand how birth order shifts impact your kids, this conversation is packed with raw, actionable wisdom.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • The Grief Element: Why every blended family counselor is actually a grief counselor—and how to help kids process the unspoken loss of divorce.
  • Managing Expectations: Facing the reality of "instant family" life, merging different parenting styles, and navigating the delicate transition of shared living spaces.
  • True Resilience vs. Adaptability: Why "kids are resilient" is a myth, and how to teach children to identify and cope with big feelings.
  • The Primacy of Marriage: Creative date night ideas for parents who can't get away, setting boundaries on disrespect, and the power of a weekly "marriage business meeting."
  • Handling New Dynamics: Navigating birth order disruptions, coping with "ours babies" in the ex's household, and managing parental jealousy.
  • The Power of Community: Why 75% of step-couples fail to get premarital support—and why "hope is not a strategy."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Connect with Dr. Deana Thayer:

Connect with Kameran:


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SPEAKER_01

What are you feeding your mind right now? If it's social media, are you tired of doom scrolling through the angry comment sections and political rants yet? What if you use that time to actually fix your marriage? Welcome to the free married and connected school community. It's like social media, but without the ads, without the judgment, and without the noise. Just real self-paced tools that get you out of that roommate phase starting today. Inside, you get an exact blueprint for a weekly State of the Union meeting with your spouse. We're cutting mental load, we're stopping miscommunications, and we're breaking that exhausting loop of doom argument once and for all. Plus, you get instant access to workshops on overcoming resentment and bringing the actual fun back into your marriage. We have a dedicated space just for guys jumping into forging fortitude. It's a 10-week intensive to help you step into your masculine leadership and become the husband and man that God called you to be. And for ladies joining Edifying Eden, we're stepping out of that controlling, nagging era into our soft, nurturing feminine era. Even if your husband hasn't taken the reins yet. Either way, you can take responsibility for your side of the street. Stop scrolling the internet and start investing in your home. The community is 100% free with options to purchase certain courses. Click the link in the show notes and join the Married and Connected school community today. I'll see you inside. Marriage isn't supposed to feel like roommates, but it doesn't have to feel like a war either. Hi, I'm Cameron Already, certified marriage coach and a relationship expert. Every week on Married and Connected, I bring you real talk, hard truths, and practical tools you can start using right away. Whether you've been married two years or 42, this is where you'll find hope, encouragement, and steps that actually work. So let's make your marriage feel good again, starting right now. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the Married and Connected Podcast. I'm your host, Cameron Alaricki. Today I am joined with Dr. Dina Thayer. She's a podcaster, speaker, and author with over two decades of experience in the marriage and parenting sphere. She originally served as a doula and childbirth educator before moving into parenting, coaching, and podcasting, most recently appearing on Dr. Gary Chapman's Building Relationships podcast. For over a decade, Dina has enjoyed partnering with her husband, Scott, and leading blended family ministry through premarital coaching, mentoring, and small group facilitation. Drawing on her own experience as a wife, mom, and stepmom, Dina is passionate about providing stepfamilies practical tools and to navigate the complexities of blended family life. She works with Focus on the Family. And we are so excited to have you on the podcast today, Dina. Welcome. Well, I'm glad to be with you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So just jumping right in, I am so excited because as someone who is also in a blended family now, um, we did not have any resources when we like I got divorced. He had never been married. We have, you know, I've got a son from previous marriage. And it was like, okay, well, let's just jump into this. No premarital counseling, no, no, nothing. Like looking back, I'm like, oh my gosh, we did so many things wrong. So many things wrong. So, so yes, I'm so excited for you to give listeners resources and tips and also just tell a little bit about your experience with, you know, you and Scott getting married and how you met and um blending, blending your two families.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So now I understand why you said you were excited to talk about this because this is also part of your story, and that's true for many people. And we're the stats are so hard to pin down with blended families. There's just not good research on it. In fact, I was talking to a leader of another blended family ministry just this week about some new Pew research that came out about children in blended families, and it said something like 17% of children under 18 are in a blended family. But here's the thing: it only looked at minors, and sometimes there are people over 18 in a blended family home, and it didn't look at single-parent homes where those kids often have a step parent maybe in the other home if their parents have divorced or split up in some way. So that's just one example of why even getting accurate and accurate picture of how many people are in blooded families is so tricky. And because of that, we don't have good research, we don't have good data, we don't often have very accurate stats. And so it's easy to think, oh, this is a pretty small segment of the population. And so it goes to exactly what you said. As a result, just not a lot of great resources out there. I think it's getting better, and I'm very thankful for that. We're starting to have, you know, even small group curriculums and things like that that weren't available, you know, even a decade ago. There's books now, there's more focused premarital coaching that you can get that looks at, well, what are you stepping into if you already have kids? So it's getting better, but you're exactly right. And so I'm sorry that was your experience that you guys were in that same boat. We were too. We were kind of like, well, I guess we'll figure it out. And we did premarital work, but it was not tailored to a step family. And so ultimately, I think at the end of the day, that can still do a disservice to the couple because it's not covering all of the complexity that they're going to face.

SPEAKER_01

For sure. And I think you hit the nail on the head there with the complexity that couples are going to face. I don't think they realize, um, and and one of the things that I appreciate that you talked about in Dr. Gary Chapman's podcast is that, and one of the things that you're focused on is that in order for a blended family to come together, there has to be loss before that. And I don't think that's something that we take into enough consideration, especially when it comes to the kids and what they're navigating.

SPEAKER_02

You're exactly right. And, you know, you asked a little bit about kind of our journey and and how we met. And I think even when we met, we met through a mutual friend, which was really fun. And because it was the old-fashioned way. I feel like so many times now people are like, we met online. And yeah, you know, we're we're in the minority, I guess, that we didn't. But even for us with five kids between us, I don't think we had a clue how much grief they were kind of still unpacking. And we actually, Scott and I just spoke at an event for counselors recently, and we actually told them if you counsel a blended family couple or a blended family, you are a grief counselor. And it was amazing. Even in the room, there was kind of murmuring, like, oh, I hadn't thought about it that way. But everyone that you're counseling in that situation has been through some kind of loss. And for kids who are less equipped with all of the tools and vocabulary to process that, that's extra challenging. So it is unfortunately a thing that gets overlooked and it's super important because it's a large element of blended family life, especially early on.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I think, I think taking it to those expectations too of what blended family life is going to be, one of the things that you've talked about, you and Scott's story, that on your wedding day, all of your kids cried at one point because that's kind of the nail in the coffin of my parents are never getting back together. And that's that's really hard. And I think I know, so we we were divorced and then we reconciled. But with that has come a lot of um challenges. Like when we were separated, the the kids were very much like they would say, I want Baba to come home, I want Baba to live with us, like things like that. And I don't think when you're in the middle of a divorce, that's like the last thing you want to hear. But at the same time, that's that's a very real reality for them. And I don't think we take that into consideration enough.

SPEAKER_02

No, and it's it's so tricky, dependent even on like the ages of the kids. Like my children were super small when all of our stuff went down. So they don't really remember their dad and I together. And I think that saved us from a lot for sure of issues later on. And now, I mean, they're young adults and they're like, oh, I can't even imagine you and dad together. It's so weird. Like, what were you guys thinking? So it's really funny that is funny, their perspective, they don't have this kind of longing for it to be the way it was, so to speak. Right. But what you're describing is way more often the case. The kids are wishing they could have both parents at the same house, not have to go back and forth, you know, all of that. It makes so much sense. And when Scott and I do premarital with a quote, step couple that's headed toward this, this is a lot of what we talk about. Like get it out on the table. What are you thinking this is going to look like? How do you hope to co-parent if there are exes in the picture? Where will you live? Because wow, we have seen some drop-down drag-outs over housing, especially if one partner has to move into a house that was shared with the previous spouse. It's very, very delicate, like especially I think for women, where your house feels somewhat like a reflection of you because it's how you decorate and the things that you choose. And so moving into a space, and I did this, we lived thankfully for only about eight or nine months, but in the house that my husband shared with his ex. I did not love it. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. So, even those kinds of expectations, are you going to try? Do you have an expectation that you will maybe buy or rent a neutral house that no one has been in with an ex or their partner that passed away? There's so much to talk about. And I think it's really unfortunate, but I think that just by virtue of having been in a relationship before or been married before, some couples kind of get into this rose-colored glasses thing. And they're like so excited, as they should be, about a second chance at love, or say they have a faith paradigm and they are like, finally, I can have a godly relationship. I mean, whatever it is, they're excited and that makes sense, but it can really hinder the ability to have a good talk about what are the realistic expectations. So that's one. And then I think also just being married before or being in a relationship before, there's a little bit of this like, hey, we've done this before, we know what we're doing. And so part of Scott and I's job, we kind of joke about this, but part of our job in premarital coaching is to open their eyes to like, well, no, you haven't done this before with like instant family and all these other people and possibly other households involved. And so it's really important to talk through that stuff. I mean, you're right. If you A, have expectations that you don't talk about, that can be an issue. But I think also in blended families, there's sometimes just unrealistic expectations that oh, we're gonna be fine, we'll figure it out. You know, kids are resilient, all that stuff that gets me so on my soapbox.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I I just it's kids are resilient, is the is the one thing that I just want to punch people in the face when they say that because they are not as resilient as you think they are.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and I think we have our wrong idea of what true resilience is. Resilience is. Yeah, that it's not just this idea of like you just bounce back and you're fine. It's really a lot more layers than that, and teaching kids to actually identify big feelings and cope with them and move through them. True resilience is moving through a hard thing, not bouncing back from it. So I get I get all up in arms about that too, because I think that can weave into this too. Divorce is very hard on kids. The death of a parent, very hard on kids, a new family, very hard on kids. And so we can't just sweep it away with like, well, they're adaptable, they're resilient. So yeah, that expectations thing is huge. Couples really need to talk in advance about their expectations. And I would say, if that resource is available to you, get some coaching before you get married, because maybe someone else as an objective third party can shed some light on that.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's really hard too, because you know, before you have kids, you're like, my kids are gonna eat only organic food and they're never gonna eat Cheetos and they're never gonna do this, that, and the third. And by the time your second or third comes along, they're eating Cheetos in the back of the car because that's what you got time for and you're swinging through McDonald's. So everything you said was going to happen before wildly different. And I think too, you know, with with Modi, we had all of these conversations. You know, these were things he was in Egypt for two years before we even got went before he was able to come back and we were able to get married. You know, we went through a lot of these conversations and I said, okay, so if this happens, how are you gonna handle it? And if this goes wrong and if this does this and like all of that. And then when we're in the middle of it, it's a completely different scenario. And it's like, well, I thought I would do this, and also now. Yeah, you know, hindsight being 2020. So talk a little bit about those expectations. How do you navigate that when you are in the middle of it? And it's like, well, I made decisions based on what you said you'd do, and now we're doing something different.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. And that's a that's a hard one because especially, you know, and it's it's probably different for many of your listeners, but especially for people who don't live together first. It in my faith paradigm, we didn't do that. So we didn't either.

SPEAKER_01

We lived together for two weeks before we got married, but only because we knew this was because of the fiance visa and how it worked. We had 30 days by the time no, we had less than that. He came back November 16th and we had to be married by December 9th.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So we had like two weeks.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you don't get a lot of warning in that situation. And and that's the thing. If if you there are some things that you find out by being under the same roof, and that is really hard. So if you're saying, hey, we talked about this in advance, this is what we agreed on, but that's not really what it looks like. Yeah. I mean, the the big thing is, and we say this all the time, Scott and I, like you have to have a lot of grace and a lot of patience. So the patience comes for, hey, I didn't know you were gonna be like that, and I didn't know you were gonna talk to my kids this way, or whatever it is, like having some patience because we're all learning. It's like a steep learning curve, I feel like, to be in a family. But also the grace piece of just okay, I have to leave room for Scott to make some mistakes. He's figuring this out in real time. And I would hope he would offer me the same courtesy. And so that's a big one because you're right. Sometimes you don't know when there's an unmet expectation until you're in the situation. And again, though, I would go back to how important the communication is. Just either, hey, we agreed on this and this isn't what happened, what's happening. Do we need to dial back to what we agreed on? Or do we want to talk about something different? So getting the communication on board, but then also just packing a lot of patience because yeah, it I mean, we stepped in it a lot early on.

SPEAKER_01

Same. But full humility, that's where I screwed up. Was no, we've talked about this, so therefore you should know how to do this. So therefore, get your life together. You know what I mean? That's where I was very rigid when it came to that and definitely, definitely stepped in it for many, many days.

SPEAKER_02

Easy, easy to do for sure. I was the more, I was definitely the more rigid and strict parent. So I mean, that was a place where I I had to learn how to sand off the rough edges. Hey, it's someone's birthday. Maybe it's okay if there's dessert on a weeknight. You know, just yeah, I was just a stinker. But I think it we'd both been parenting separately as single parents, and we didn't do it the same way. And trying to merge those styles is is very challenging. It's why parenting is the number one stressor for blended families.

SPEAKER_01

Actually, okay, so while we're on this topic, one of the things that you said that I really want to touch on, because again, I I don't think that there is a lot of research on how hard this is for kids, but what do you see? Like, talk about long-term effects, like how difficult it is on the kids, then leads to difficulties in the marriage, all of that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It is there are long-term effects. I feel like divorce is probably one of the best places where we can use the analogy of like throwing a rock in a pond. There's such a ripple effect for so long. And it's it's there's no question. But I have seen some super well-adjusted kids who've been through a divorce, a couple of factors, and I think nothing is for sure. So that's what I'm saying. Everybody's different, their own wiring plays in, their personality. Are they a more adaptable person? You know, all of those things. But a couple of things, the younger it happens, there's more time for recovery. So my kids were basically like toddler preschooler, and they're pretty great with some caveats, which I'll talk about in a second. So I think some of it is just the age at which the divorce happened. If you're right in the middle of like, say, puberty, ah, like that's so horrible. Middle school's hard enough for kids without their family imploding or whatever. So some of it is that just age at which this event occurred, whether it's death of a parent, divorce, another one is how healthy are the two parents emotionally, mentally. Yeah. Because if you have, yes, maybe there's two homes, but they're both really stable and really solid, and the parents co-parent well, and they're civil and even maybe friendly, and they can sit together at an event at graduation or whatever. Those kids, you see far different outcomes than the ones where it's so contentious. The parents can't even be at the same room. They certainly couldn't attend a family event together, or you've got one that's just really toxic, unhealthy, whether that's substance abuse, mental health challenges, they're manipulative, use the kids as a pawn. Because we definitely see that. We've now been working with blended families for 11 years, and we've seen harmful things, parental alienation, some of that. Those kids are gonna struggle. They don't know what to believe. If they don't know if they're on foot or horseback, you know, it's really tricky. It doesn't mean you don't have some that really push through, get therapy, get themselves healthy, and then are able to look at that in an objective way. But those are your parents. So the other thing that I've seen over and over is that no matter how dysfunctional one or the other parent might be, there is such a fierce loyalty to a biological parent. So whether that parent is in jail on drugs, they're really not safe emotionally, there's still this desire to defend them. And so it sometimes takes until adulthood for a child to say, oh, actually, there were some unhealthy patterns going on, and I have some work to do to recover from that, and I have to put up some boundaries in how I handle this relationship. You know, just all of those things really play in. What's awesome, I'll end on a good note, is that it's uh it's emerging research, but there's starting to be research that a really healthy, blended family can mitigate some of the effects, harmful effects of divorce. So when kids get to then see a healthy, strong marriage, a relationship where people are emotionally intelligent, responding to each other appropriately, responding to the kids appropriately, leaning into good communication, healthy conflict, it helps. So that's really cool that we see wow, a step family can be a healing element here if it's done well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Um, one of the things that you said was when you're co-parenting well, what does that look like specifically?

SPEAKER_02

So I think successful co-parenting really comes down to are you able to be a grown-up and set aside the baggage from your relationship with that person and make your dealings about what is best for the kids. So I know that what I'm about to say, peop some people are gonna be like, there's no way. And I get it. I mean, I left an emotionally and verbally unsafe situation myself. And if you had told me I would ever do this, I would have been like, no way. There's been a lot of time and healing. But for example, my ex-husband and I together took our kids to China. Yeah. And and part of that was we didn't want them to miss out on the experience. We'd been invited by family friends, but I wasn't stoked about my ex being halfway across the world with my kids who were still little. They were like six and eight at the time. He wasn't stoked in reverse. And we were able to say, you know, what is good for the kids? It's to get to travel, to get to experience another culture. So how do we be Grown-ups. So that's a very extreme example, especially because there's some people who, like I said, they couldn't even probably go to a baby shower together. And I get that. This isn't going to be everyone's reality. But could you say, be at the same sporting event and maybe be gracious when it's over and say, you know, it's my weekend. They're coming home with me. Why don't I let them go say hi to their mom first? That's an awesome dad who can say, Hey, you're coming home with me after when your game's over, go say hi to your mom. You know, like that kind of thing. That's still good co-parenting because it says what is good for the kids right now, that's what I'm going to focus on when I'm even in the same sphere as this person who might be really triggering for me. So that's that's kind of what it comes down to. It there's a million ways that looks, but I would say that's the bottom line is can you set aside your own jump and go, what's going to be good for my little people who are watching and learning how to be a grown-up? If I act like an immature stinker every time I'm with my ex because I get triggered and then I respond into the old unhealthy patterns and they're seeing us argue or listening to unhealthy conversations or raised voices or whatever it might be, that's not a style. I mean, you don't want your kids to see that. So that's really what it comes down to. What I will say is that sometimes takes time because you will interact with your ex less organically over time. And for some people, that is what they need is like it has to be less. And as the kids get older and they're driving, you're not the ones, you know, doing drop-off and visitation and all the things. Some of it gets better organically. Some of it will stay hard all the way through. And that's just real. But like, like for us, and my ex would agree, like, I'm not talking out of turn here. We've just talked about this this week, but for us, the finances were hard to the bitter end. Like we still have a kid in college, and it's just been tricky for us to divide that, to figure out what's fair. I'm super like, well, I want to pay things the instant they're due. He sometimes not so much. So that's been a thing that, like, that's gonna last until we're all done with any shared financial responsibilities. But as far as how we interact, way better, way different. We can we sit, we our daughter got her master's degree last May. We sat right next to each other, you know. Yeah. So some of it just does improve with time, and then there might be sticky speed bumps for a long time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. With my first husband, I mean, we we get along great. We, I can, you know, I can handle, can't always deal with his wife very well. But but with him, yeah, we get along very well. And I mean, I would say that we we co-parent amazingly now. Oh, that's so cool. Um, so yeah, but there's no there's also no there's no feelings there anymore. You know, like I I don't even this is weird to say, but like I don't even look at him as somebody that I was married to once. Like it's like I don't even really remember a lot of that time. And I don't know if that's like a dissociation thing or what, but but yeah, like he's just a guy that I that I knew at one point, that now we share a kid together, kind of thing. And it and it works for us. Um so yeah, that I would say the co-parenting, but I love that you that you touched on that, that the kids can't see you, you know, having these unhealthy conversations and things like that. Because I think a lot of times people and and in my experience with couples that I've coached and whatnot, it comes up as like I can call you names, I can yell at you, you know, I can be emotionally or verbally abusive an hour or two before we're supposed to go do X, Y, and Z with our kids, and then you but you have to just let me come. Well, if it's your you know, if it's their day and you've been invited, no, you can be disinvited because you can't be kind. Like that's not good for your kids to see. You know, if we're trying to build a healthy relationship, you're the least healthy link in that chain. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

That's and that's part of it too, that's hard, right? Because sometimes you might have to put down a boundary so that your kids don't witness something that isn't healthy or safe. And then that uh often doesn't go over well. And so it's it's really hard to to walk that line of being a good advocate for your children and and also being a healthy example and leaving some opportunities to interact with that ex if they're in the picture, because that's also important for the kids to see that you can do that. And it's just brutal. I love Romans 12, 18 because it says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. And I think never is this a better situation than if you have an ex, because a, sometimes it won't be possible. There are times where that other person is so unhealthy or unsafe, and it isn't possible, and it's not the best choice. But then if it is possible, go to the next part as far as it depends on you. Sometimes they're going to be responding in ways that are defensive or even downright verbally abusive, and that's not on you, but you still have a responsibility to live at peace with them as far as it depends on you. So that really helped me a lot. That, like, okay, I have to make sure I can sleep at night, I can look myself in the mirror. I know that I've at least been generically civil or kind or courteous, and I can't be in charge of the rest. It's not up to me how that other person responds. So that's been like a really helpful guide.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's one of the things that I've had to let go is that control of like trying to control how he and then just focusing and being able to be like, well, I did the best I could. So it is what it, it is what it is, you know. Um okay, we've talked a lot about the kids. I wanna I want to dive into the marriage part of blending a family. So when you are with this new spouse, and like we talked about earlier, you don't get a lot of time alone, especially if you are the the primary default parent. Um your ex doesn't have your kids very much or at all.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard. Yeah. There it's super hard. And it could be a situation like you described, where you just have the child most of the time. We see this crop up a lot if there's someone who's widowed because there isn't another parent where they're going. Or sometimes the parent just isn't in the picture or has signed away their parental rights, whatever it might be. You really could have children all the time, literally. And so I think we have to kind of challenge the idea of that meaningful couple time always means kid free. It it doesn't. It can. I mean, maybe it's worth it for you guys to hire a babysitter because you have children all the time or whatever. But I like the idea of also challenging that. So if you do get, I'll kind of go from the top down. So if you do get kid free time, I think there's a lot of creative ways that say you aren't the couple who can go on a couple vacation, but maybe you could do like a day date where you're gone for several hours and go do some of your favorite stuff together. That can be a really good way if going away overnight just isn't feasible in that season. Or maybe there's even a health reason for that. If you have a child with special needs that they've got to have care overnight or and you don't want to entrust that to someone, those things make sense. So just some of this is about thinking outside the box in a blended family because you're gonna just it's gonna look a little different. Another thing is having dates that don't require leaving. I mean, we had lots of in-the-house dates after the kids went to bed because it was like, well, this is our only option. And the reason is, and again, this is a complexity of blended families that intact first families don't experience, which is whose weekend is it? And in our case, we had one of the exes that was a little more stubborn than the other and wouldn't trade so that we could match. So we either had my kids or his kids. We were never alone on a weekend. And so that eventually we we got it to line up, but that was really hard. And so there were plenty of times where we did the whole evening routine, bedtime routine, and then have a date. I mean, and sometimes it was leftover dino nuggets, but we just did it by candlelight or whatever. But to just carve out the time is what's most important, not what it looks like or what you're doing. Sometimes it's just like, hey, we've got to get some time where we can look at each other like adults or have a deeper conversation or discuss this sticky situation with your ex that came up this week. And we can't do that in front of all these rug rats, you know, like it's just yeah, it's true. So some of that can be creative at home, whether it's like, or maybe you even have like a family movie night. The kids are there, but you can at least snuggle on the couch. They can build a fun tent, you can all climb in it. Our kids love to build forts, and they always were like, we're gonna sleep in it tonight, we're gonna have a sleepover, and then they'd get scared and go to their bed. But it was, it was like, if we could just get a little out of the day today, to me, even that can be couple connection. Can we just do something a little out of the ordinary? It breaks the routine. We sometimes would do like theme dinners. That's really fun. Like, say the theme is baby. So we all come in our pajamas, we drank out of sippy cups, we had like baby peas and baby back ribs for the meal. And the kids love it because they're like, the grown-ups are being silly, but it's also like a little connection for us because we're like, look, we're making a cool memory for our blended family. And so I think some of it is just thinking outside the box. And actually, for a deeper dive into this, if if some of you in the audience are like, oh, this is me, I need ideas. I actually wrote an article about this called getaways for the couple who can't get away. Well, and it's on the focus on the family website. If I I actually checked it out before we started recording to see what's the easiest way to find it. Do you have to do focusonthefamily.com/slash marriage or whatever? You don't. If you type in the search bar, can't get away, it's the first thing that comes up. So check that out if you need more ideas. It goes all the way from hey, you can get away for a weekend to you can only go for a few hours to you're at home and lots of creative ideas for how to just connect as a couple. Cause that we will I'll put that link in the show notes too. Oh, that'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Cause that's huge. That was one of our things. And I think that goes back to expectations too, is you know, if you have the expectation that a date is that you have to leave the house, you have to spend more than $100, you have to get, you know, dressed up and and look nice and go downtown and do this something extravagant, you're never going to be able to have dates. Like you're going to get maybe one a year.

SPEAKER_02

If that's then you're going to have the unmet expectations that we were talking about and be disappointed. And that's just a breeding ground for resentment. And when you host a podcast like Married and Connected, resentment does not breed connection. So you've got to be willing to get creative and say, you know what, a date could be what we call chefing together. We're like, we're going to cook together tonight. And then we at least get to chat while we're making dinner or whatever. Yeah. Some sometimes it's as simple as that. But if you're not willing to think outside the box, you're right. You're gonna, if you think it's the typical fancy date, probably not gonna happen quite for for quite some time. It's why a lot of the people in the blended family space will joke about how the honeymoon comes quite a bit later.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because until we were empty nesters, we were like not really a lot of couple time. So it's it's real.

SPEAKER_01

The primacy of the marriage. Talk a little bit about that and how to make that happen. That not necessarily the date part, but just prioritizing the marriage and not just your kids.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. And I mean, certainly some of that is trying to get some couple time, but it's not all of it. You're right. There's other ways you do that. One big one for us has been having, well, we call it a one-on-one, which is kind of corporate language, but having some kind of a business touch base every week. And that was really important with five kids moving in a million different directions and having their different activities for us to be able to just go, all right, what does the week ahead look like? How can we support each other? Do you need me to maybe drive your kids somewhere? Because that makes more sense for efficiency. Even that is like communicating to Scott, you are important to me. How can I help your week run smoothly? And him doing the same in reverse. The other thing I like about having some kind of an admin touch base pretty regularly, especially if you still have kids in the home, you might be able to space these out later, but is because if you have that many moving parts, you've got to talk about them at some point, or then they come up on the date. And nobody wants to spend their date talking about who's taking so-and-so to gymnastics and piano practice. So if you've got a place that you can park that conversation, it doesn't come out when you're trying to just have some nice couple connection. And so I like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I have a template for couples on my school website that if people get in there under resources, it's a one-page template, budgets, sexy time, meal plans, um, the logistics of the appointments and the activities and all the things. Yes. And then there's like six or eight questions that they can go through about their marriage. How am I doing? How can I show up for you this week? What's it like to be with me right now? Like those kinds of things. Um, just to kind of get a temperature read on their marriage as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. Because it's so important. I mean, that's that's like our time to connect. Like, how can I pray for you this week? But also just we have to sometimes talk about the nuts and bolts, right? So yeah, you've got to put that somewhere so it doesn't leak out in a place that you don't want it. So that's one I think that elevates the primacy is hey, we make time to actually also deal with the business of life. Another one that really elevates your spouse is connecting on calendaring. And so, yes, this can happen at the business meeting, but it also means things like what about your social calendar? How often are you having maybe a double date with someone else? Or how do you handle like, okay, great example. My husband officiates youth football. So we have to talk together if he's gonna have a football game and he's officiating, then I need to know so that I'm not inadvertently planning something for us when he's not available. So that connection really for me, it has made me feel like a priority in his life when he talks to me about his calendar. He also travels for work. So we have to coordinate if he's gonna be gone and I'm not left high and dry with whatever. So that's one way that, and we often do that in our one-on-one. Like, what does the week ahead look like? But you might even have to do it further out, just so you know what's coming down the pipeline. And then I think probably the biggest one, and it is back to involving the kids is how do you elevate your spouse to in front of your children? Do they see that you take time together? Do you like our kids used to be really spicy about this? But we told them once a year we're gonna do a big fun family vacation, but once a year we're gonna go away as a couple. Sorry. Like, and they would like they would have some opinions about that. Like you're leaving us and we don't get to go, whatever. But we wanted them to see us make each other a priority. And we did it when they were with the other parent, and we didn't want to take away our time with them, but we wanted them to see us doing that. Hey, we're gonna go away and like take good care of this. And that is so, so huge. And then also, even just the talking, the way that we would frame what we called each other to the kids. So let me just rip give an example rather than that, because that's sounding really confusing. So, for example, if there was ever disrespect from, say, one of Scott's children to me, he never appealed to me as the stepmom because what do they care? I hadn't earned a place in their life yet. But what he would say is, I'm not gonna let you talk to my wife like that.

SPEAKER_01

Love that.

SPEAKER_02

That was totally different. Because not only did it elevate me and show them, hey, this marriage relationship is number one, but out of respect for their dad, then they would treat me different because they're like, oh, as a result of who she is to my dad, I'll respect her. They weren't ready to respect me just on my own merit yet, not right out of the gate, but oh, it's my dad's wife. Well, that's different. So that really helped just bringing in that vocabulary. Don't talk to my my person like that. So yeah, there's a couple, those are just a handful of ways that can kind of help bring that to the forefront.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Yeah, that's that's huge. As a couple, how do you show up for your kids well when the ex has has had a new baby or there's more kids introduced there?

SPEAKER_02

I would say there's a couple of things that happen that are really interesting. One, sometimes the kids are actually excited about a baby. And it can be weird for the parents to lean into that, but I would say lean into that. Don't rob your child of the joy. If they're handling it well and they're pumped, let them be. There's some anecdotal evidence. I mean, every family is so different, but sometimes an Rs baby is actually pretty unifying for a family. So it might help your kids and the other step kids kind of feel bonded. Oh, this baby belongs to all of us. So that's one thing I would say is I'm a big fan of validating kids. And so if they're doing well with it, lean into that. Don't poo-poo the new baby and rain on their parade if they're if they're coping well. But if they're not, then some a couple of things become really important. Number one, leaving room to talk about it without going into bashing the other home. Because I think I don't even think I I did this perfectly, but the big critical thing if there is another parent involved is is not to speak poorly about them. And sometimes I think that's harder when they also have a new partner because you might be getting better with your ex. Well, you even described this, you might be getting to a point where you're better with them, but the new partner is challenging for you. Right. So leaving room for them to talk about that, especially if you get a heads up. We've also seen some families who don't say anything and then all of a sudden it's like there's a baby. So if they know in advance and there's time to be excited and there's time to talk about it, oh, you know, your dad's your your stepmom in the other house is pregnant. How do you feel about that? Leaving a lot of room while you keep your commentary out. You can bring your commentary to your spouse later, but to just stay out here and be willing to let make space. And then if they are having a hard time, the thing I like to do is I call it compassionate curiosity. So leaning into the big feelings, but also asking questions. So that might look like, yeah, that makes sense that that's really hard that there's going to be a new baby when you're right now, you're the baby. So tell me about what you're worried about. Are you, is it that you won't get as much attention? Are you concerned that they'll feel differently about that baby because it belongs to both of them? It's not a stepchild. Tell me more. So inviting that conversation while validating, like, yep, that's hard. And actually, what I said there is another thing that doesn't always get talked about in blended families is how often a birth order gets upset.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's really challenging. You've got a kid like I have a my oldest is now four of five, second youngest in our blend. So that's really strange because birth order is real. A lot of the personality traits that come with it are real. And when that's disrupted, there can be a lot of feelings about wait, I'm not a baby, I'm not the baby. I'm the firstborn, but now I'm like in the middle. What is that? So even those kinds of things can come up when there's a new baby. So I'm I'm big on the validating, the compassionate curiosity, leave lots of room for talking. And if you do have your own hard feelings about the situation, take them to pastor, lay counselor, your therapist, your partner, and not don't leak that out onto the kids. Which seems so obvious, but it's sometimes it's hard though.

SPEAKER_01

It's hard. Yeah. No, I get it. I'm so glad you you uh mentioned the birth order. I'm actually interviewing an author that has a book out about birth order. Oh, so I'm reading this book right now, and I've never, as the oldest, I'm the oldest, but I'm also the only girl. I've never really, I mean, I've thought about birth order, but never really how when your birth order switches up because of a divorce or what have you, how that kind of like messes with your identity. So yeah, it's a that's a very interesting concept. Yeah. The one thing that was hard for us, you know, I I used to get along very well with my ex's wife. What changed the dynamic was when she had kids of her own, because Mason is the oldest. Okay. And so when she started having kids of her own, Mason kind of got he started being treated kind of Like the redheaded stepchild. And that the mama bear in me kind of kicked in. And I was like, no, ma'am, that's this is this isn't gonna fly. So that's that's where we've struggled was since then. That makes so much. That can be hard. You know, running this is the thing that people do not realize about divorce is that when you get remarried, it's not just one dynamic of like, okay, this is our marriage. This is, you know, this is our marriage, and we can keep it in a box and protect it, and everything is like it is a fluid river of different dynamics of the ex and their relationship. And, you know, if they get the rede, if they get divorced again, and it like the kids and how their kids fall into the the mix and how you know all of it is just it's very complex. And I don't think people really take that into consideration when they are considering remarriage or divorce either.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're right. Sometimes having a visual of that is so eye-opening. So I'll just recommend one other resource. There's a website called blending. And there is a fee for it. It's not crazy. I want to say it's maybe $25, but you can actually create your own blended family geneogram where you see all the people and the exes and the other households and which relationships, how warm are the relationships? So you see all the ties. We do it with our premarital couples, and invariably they're like, wow. I knew that there was an ex, or I knew that my spouse was a widower. And so the mom who's passed away, her family was still gonna be involved. But until I saw all this on this paper, I had not a real concept for all of what we're gonna be navigating. Very helpful. Blending.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I will put that in the show notes too, because that is gonna be very eye-opening, I think. Gosh, Dina, I could talk to you for another hour at least, but um easily. It would be funny. I know. For anything that has been missed, is there anything else that you want couples to know or any other resources that you have for them or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02

I love that you asked this because I don't feel like we missed anything. I mean, it's so nice to have a full hour. That's not always the case. So I feel like we covered a lot, which is great. The big encouragement that I would want to leave people with is don't do this alone. So if you're dating or engaged and you're headed toward a step family, get some premarital support, whatever that looks like. Maybe your church offers it, but if they don't, seek it out, advocate for yourselves. Say, hey, we need premarital support that includes some blended family elements. That's gonna be really important. So ask for that because the stats are really alarming. It's about 75% of step couples that don't seek any premarital support at all. And then they're just going in blind, like we were talking about, you know, and winging it. And it's winging it is not the best option for a blended family. You don't want to just be playing a game of whack-a-mole. You want to have some strategies. And that's not a strategy. Yeah, it's not. It's good to have hope, but it doesn't get you very far in the day-to-day. And then if you're already in this, same thing. Obviously, it would look different, but don't do it alone. Find a small group at your church. If they don't have one, maybe you're the person to start one. Get together with other people, maybe have a mentor who's on the blended family journey, but a little ahead of you. Just it's so important to have community and support. It's been a lifeline for us. In fact, we started our group born out of the necessity that we needed a group. We were like, we're struggling. And thankfully, our church was open to us starting one. And now we've been blessed to do this ministry for 11 years and it's amazing. But we we would not be where we are today without having other people to walk alongside who quote unquote get it. It's really important.

SPEAKER_01

It is really important. Dina, thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate you and your wisdom so much. And I know that listeners that are in this position of blended families, I know that they will too.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was my pleasure. Thanks for all your great questions, and I hope it's helpful.

SPEAKER_01

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Kameran Thompson Al-Areqi

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