Dr. John Townsend defines four essential character traits that individuals need to navigate life's challenges and demands. He shares with Ron Deal that these components are required for stronger relationships. We can help our children and stepchildren develop them and be resilient kids. 1) Attachment: the ability to trust and be vulnerable with others 2) Separation: the ability to have your own voice, which includes healthy boundary-setting 3) Integration: navigating both the positive and negative realities of life 4) Adulthood: the capacity to take responsibility, make sound decisions, and live a purposeful life.

Show Notes and Resources

• Access Dr. Townsend's TPRAT and other resources 
• Search on and/or post to the blended ministry map 
• Give a gift to support blended families 
• Ron's trainings and events 
• List of Recognized Providers 

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The stepmom-stepdaughter relationship often includes competing loyalties and confusing dynamics and can be the hardest relationship to navigate when blending a family. Ron Deal talks with stepmom Jessica Pickens and her bonus daughter, Jayla, about their ongoing struggles, cutting through tension, which began early and continued for years, and how they finally built a loving, trusting relationship with one another.
Jayla explains how her position as a “Daddy’s girl” and her relationship with her own mother impacted her desire for a bonus mom. She didn’t respond well to Jessica’s nurturing, and tension escalated as she got older. In time, Jessica began to understand the complexity of their relationship, change her expectations, and parent Jayla differently. Slowly, their relationship moved toward understanding and love toward one another.

Show Notes and Resources

• New To Our Community? Here's a gift for you! 
• Watch Women & Blended Families on YouTube 
• Learn about Jessica and Blended Family Matters and their podcast 
• Jessica and Jayla's podcast with Ron. 
• Give a tax-deductible gift. 
• Check out Ron's events. 

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Tim and Olivia Smith brought six kids into their blended family in 1997. In their conversation with Ron Deal, they share the joys and challenges of melding together two families, how to encourage relationship building between siblings, and how stepparents can move from a place of isolation to a place of belonging in a stepfamily.

Tim’s daughter, Christie, joins the conversation with her perspective as a teenager from the early years of their blended family. Although the stepmom—stepdaughter relationship is often the hardest to connect, Christie shares how Olivia’s small actions of moving toward her and allowing her to engage at her own pace created a loving, long-lasting relationship that she treasures today as an adult. 

Show Notes and Resources

• Get a copy of The Mindful Marriage. 
• Get your copy of Blending-100 Day Guide for Step-Parents. 
• Learn about Blended Not Broken 
• Get our monthly newsletter 

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Robert and Jennie Lord both grew up in blended families. They share their stories with Ron Deal about the residue left behind from the maze of parental divorce, multiple stepparents, challenges in relationship building, unwanted transitions, and ongoing instability. They’ve sought healing from those experiences and now want to share what they’ve learned with others.

Married with a family of their own, they are committed to their marriage and want to provide an upbringing for their children that is vastly different than what they experienced. They teach and model a life built on faith and seek to provide stability and build strong bonds with their children.

Show Notes and Resources

• Get the Blended & Blesses All-Access Digital Pass 
• Blended resources for you! 
• Learn more about Chosen and the work that Jenni does. 
• Get a copy of The Mindful Marriage. 
• Support FamilyLife Blended with a gift. 

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Jennifer Maggio shares her story with Ron Deal of her challenges as a single mom that propelled her to begin a national ministry, serving over 1,000,000 single moms. Now married in a blended family, she continues the mission that no single mom walk alone.

Show Notes and Resources

• You can still register for Blended & Blessed! 
• Learn more about Jennifer Maggio and her ministry. 
• Get a copy of the book, Preparing to Blend. 
• Support FamilyLife Blended with a gift. 

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What do you do with feelings like anger, jealousy, hurt, or rejection in your blended family? Listen to Ron Deal’s conversation with Dr. Alison Cook, who offers a three-step process to work through hard feelings and find healing and hope for your journey.

Show Notes and Resources

• Register for Blended & Blessed 
• Look for blended ministries and events in your area. 
• Learn about Dr. Alison, get her books, and listen to her podcast. 
• Listen to the show on grief with Diane Fromme 
• Support FamilyLife Blended with a gift. 
• Blended resources 

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Parenting a prodigal creates pain and helplessness as we seek to navigate difficult relationships. Listen to Ron Deal’s conversation with Judy Douglass, a prodigal parent, on how to tenderly manage these tenuous relationships while staying calm, present, and patient in rebuilding a relationship on their terms.

Douglass and Deal discuss the Prodigal Son story in Luke and the parallels with our prodigals in opening our arms to them when appropriate but not chasing or threatening in any way with our behavior. We move toward the goal of gaining influence as we patiently work to bring back love and trust in our relationships.

Show Notes and Resources

• Make plans to join us at Blended & Blessed! 
• Judy's podcast with Ron 
• Judy's podcast: When You Love a Prodigal 
• Order your copy of When You Love a Prodigal 

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Cheryl Shumake wants to reach brown & black blended families with brown & black voices. She & Clifton Howard talk with Ron Deal about her new ministry, Sawubona, which means “I see you” & its goal to break through the barriers with culture-informed spaces

Show Notes and Resources

• Watch Blended & Blessed from anywhere in the world! 
• Join us on the 2026 Love Like You Mean It Cruise 
• Learn more about Cheryl 
• Sawubona Ministries 
• Send a tax deductible gift 
• Ron's upcoming events 
• Blended Small Group Ministry Map 

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What does the apostle Paul mean in Philippians 2:4 when he says, “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others?” How do we apply that to marriage, and to relationships in a blended family?

In this podcast episode, Ron Deal talks with Brian Goins, author of Playing Hurt, A Guy’s Strategy for a Winning Marriage, about taking care of our own needs and always being mindful of the needs of our spouse. Goins explains that marriage is about finding the motivation and resolve to stay in the game despite the pain and calls husbands to be the heroes they long to be--men who play hurt in order to win at marriage.

Show Notes and Resources

• Get Ron's new book: The Mindful Marriage 
• Get Brian's book: Playing Hurt
• Check out Brain, Heart, World
• Order The Art of Marriage
• Send a tax deductible gift of support
• Register for Blended & Blessed 

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Do you think your marriage could improve if your spouse were different? Is it easier to look at their faults instead of considering your own? In this podcast episode, Ron Deal talks with co-authors of his new book, The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself. Terry and Sharon Hargraves and Nan Deal share how the book can help couples understand their part of marital distress, why they react the way they do, how to be more empowered constructively, and how to cultivate more loving and harmonious relationships as they understand themselves better and learn to relate to their partner as a companion.

Show Notes and Resources

•  Small Group Searchable Map 
• Email us for your chance to win a signed copy of The Mindful Marriage. [email protected]
• Get your copy of The Mindful Marriage 
• The Mindful Marriage Conference 
• Register for Blended & Blessed 

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