Speaker 1
Did it ever leave you and your sister not getting along because you felt differently about what was happening with your biological mom?
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. When I was in high school and she was in middle school, it was a really difficult time. I decided I did not want to live at my biological mom's house anymore. And I knew that my sister wasn't there yet. She wasn't making that decision on her own.
I couldn't afford to force her to do that with me. And so I felt really guilty, feeling like I was abandoning her over there because I couldn't take it anymore. Just the situation was really not healthy.
And so then with that different perspective, and now we're not even transitioning together between the homes. It was a really hard period of time for us, for sure.
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Family Life Blended Podcast. I'm Ron Deal. We help blended families and those who love them pursue the relationships that matter most. And why do we do that? Well, because we believe there is great joy in loving God and loving others, and it makes the world a better place.
Jennifer was listening to our podcast. She listened to episode number 56, which was on adult stepfamilies. She wrote to us and said, "I'm so glad someone speaks about blended families or blending families with young adults." Well, you're welcome, Jennifer. Glad it was helpful. We do try to speak to the needs of everyone in blended families. Over the course of this podcast, we try to talk about kids, young adults, parents, stepparents, co-parenting, grandparents, and the couple—pretty much everyone.
In this episode, Jennifer, we're actually letting a young adult speak to her experience of living in a blended family. That's what we're going to be talking about. Stay with me; we'll get to that in just a minute.
So next month, Nan and I are releasing our first book for all couples. For all couples. It also happens to be what I consider to be my most important book for blended family couples. It's called *The Mindful Marriage*. Nan and I co-authored this book with good friends and marriage therapists, Dr. Terri and Sharon Hargrave, because the material is based on their brilliant work with couples and families. We just wanted to bring that to the world, which is why we partnered with them to undertake this project.
The book is part discipleship training, part neuroscience, and part attachment theory. Put it all together, and this book is really trying to help you manage stress and distress in your marriage, in your family, and in your co-parenting. It has applications to all of those relationships. I'm very excited about it. Purchase your copy today, wherever books are sold, and they'll ship it to you as soon as it releases in early January 2025. *The Mindful Marriage*.
Okay, I'm really excited about my guest today. You know, we spend a lot of time talking about kids, and in our Growing Up Blended series, we talk to young adults or adults who are reflecting back on their childhood. But in this episode of Family Life Blended, we're actually talking to a young adult about life for them now in their blended family. So it's all from her perspective.
Amelia Della Ripa is a recent graduate of Arizona State University. Her faith and her family, I'm told, are her biggest motivators. Amelia's biological parents divorced when she was seven years of age. Her biological mom is no longer in her life, and she considers her stepmom to be her mom. Amelia has one full sibling, two half-siblings, and one step-sibling, but she considers all of them, well, just siblings.
Amelia, thanks for being with me today.
Speaker 2
So nice to see you. Ron, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1
I appreciate you joining us. That was a mouthful, what I just said about all those siblings. Half siblings, step siblings. Is that the way it works for you? Do you just feel like they're family?
Speaker 2
Yeah, it definitely is a little bit of a circus just with everyone having all their schedules so busy. But, yeah, everyone just loves each other as if we were all born from the same parents.
Speaker 1
Wow. Okay, so tell us a little bit more about your family. How long have your dad and your stepmother been married? And what did it look like when you all started?
Speaker 2
Yeah, so my dad and my stepmom have been married for just over a decade now, so been blended, blending for quite a bit. When we first started out, I just had one full sibling and one older stepbrother. And then we added two younger half siblings to the mix a couple years down the line.
But honestly, it started out pretty smooth. I remember meeting my stepbrother for the first time before I had even met my stepmom, which was kind of funny because we were supposed to go out to dinner. Just this teenage boy came up to my sister and I while we were in a store, trying to be our friend, and I was so confused.
I think that that's a pretty good picture of just how it all started. Everyone was so welcoming and loving and just ready to tackle it on the same team. There was never any weird divisiveness from within, so.
Speaker 1
Hmm. Okay, so that's pretty cool. Now, how old were you when that future stepbrother walked up to you?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I had just turned seven, so pretty soon, right after my parents or my biological parents divorced.
Speaker 1
Mm. Okay. So there was a short little turnaround time there. Am I hearing that?
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And what. Was there anything weird about that? Sort of like, wow, hard transition out of one family, your parents divorcing, and now transition into another.
Speaker 2
Yeah, it definitely was very different. I mean, obviously, I had never experienced anything like that before, but the biggest win that I saw was just that we were going out to eat dinner more, obviously.
Being so young, I don't think I was really thinking about just all the bigger pieces that were moving behind the scene. I think my parents did a really good job of, you know, letting me stay a kid as best as they could with all of the crazy transition and big life change that was happening.
Speaker 1
Okay, so you had a younger sister, right?
Speaker 2
I do, yeah.
Speaker 1
Okay. And so you were seven. She was how old?
Speaker 2
She's five.
Speaker 1
And if you were guessing and we were talking with her right now instead of you, what do you think she would say if I asked her? So what was that transition like for you?
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it would be a lot different. I remember when my biological parents told my younger sister and I that they were getting a divorce, that our reactions were incredibly opposite. I remember just being very composed, just trying to understand the facts of what life was going to look like.
And my younger sister was just immediately very emotional, was just very hysterically crying. Obviously at five, she knew even less about the world, so it just felt like everything was really falling apart. I think that our experiences were very different.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I imagine as a big sister, you kind of worried about her or wondered how you could help her or how'd that go for you?
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. This kind of started a pattern into our teenage years, which wasn't super helpful, but took on a lot of responsibility for her, especially in all the transitions between the houses, and then specifically at our biological mom's house.
I was just trying to take care of her and be another kind of role model, which was probably confusing for her since my dad was already bringing in another female lead in our lives. I felt some kind of responsibility to step in as well.
But that was just, I don't know, kind of an interesting transition that was all happening at the same time.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot to juggle, right? I mean, definitely you're dealing with your own emotions, your own thoughts, your own feelings, and then you're watching your sister and you want to help her.
And then, of course, you're thinking about your parents and what's going on with them. What's that like 7, 8, 9, 10 years of age, watching dad, new marriage, new family transition and not sure what was happening on your, in your mom's life?
But how did you find yourself kind of navigating those concerns over what was going on with mom or dad?
Speaker 2
Yeah, honestly, I did not do a great job of coping with any of my new feelings. I just got really stressed out and developed a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms. I would bite my nails and I'd pull my hair out at the nape of my neck just because I didn't really know how to manage everything that was going on.
We would have fairly frequent, very open conversations at my dad's house about just how my biological mom was acting or how we were feeling at her house. Just so there were regular check-ins, but that had never happened before either. And so that was brand new and almost felt like I was like tattling on my biological mom, which is also a super weird situation to just be in the middle of.
But then I'm also trying to look out for my sister and I while we're over there. So super tricky. But yeah, I did not handle that very well, especially being so young.
Speaker 1
Do you mind if I ask a little more about the tattling and looking after your sister? What does that mean, looking after her?
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great question. So especially early on, like right after my biological parents divorced, my biological mom became more of an absent parent, which is kind of what I was hinting at, I guess earlier with me taking on a lot more responsibility of just making sure my sisters and my homework were done.
You know, we were leaving on time for school, we were ready for bed at a reasonable hour. Just kind of regular parental responsibilities. And so then when those things would happen, I would feel bad for telling my dad even though I didn't want to lie about how the situation was at the other house.
Speaker 1
Right. Isn't that just sort of a no-win situation where your dad, even if it's just an innocent question that he asks, you sort of feel guilty having an answer that you know he's not gonna like?
Or, by your own assessment, maybe mom should be doing something different than she was. And so you feel like you're tattling, and that doesn't feel right.
Speaker 2
Right. It does not feel good at all.
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's a hard place. How did you cope with that?
Like you said, you were honest; you wouldn't wanna lie. But sometimes kids kind of find other ways of skirting around it or trying to avoid the question in the first place.
I'm curious how for you.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I definitely. I mean, sometimes I just didn't want to talk about it, so I would just say things were good or keep my answers pretty short.
But my stepmom, who I consider my mom now, she was the one who brought Christianity and our spiritual life kind of back into the home, which wasn't really there in my dad's previous marriage and then in my life up until I was about 7, just because we were a bi-faith family. My dad was raised Catholic, Christian, and my biological mom was raised Jewish, so we didn't really talk about religion that much or have regular spiritual habits together.
But once my dad remarried and we were regularly attending church with them on the weekends, that was a huge outlet for me. I just felt very safe and so seen in my community. I was in a really awesome youth program where I got to meet with coaches regularly, and I don't know, just, it was a really awesome space to be able to like, actually let out all my feelings and not feel like somebody was going to report to somebody else about how I was feeling about something.
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so important to have a safe place where you could talk about whatever was chewing you up on the inside and not feel like you had to say it to dad because obviously that came with its own, you know, risk.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker 1
And its own consequence to it. So I'm so thankful that you had that in the youth program. Sounds like you had some trusted friends there.
Speaker 2
Yes, me too. They were awesome and definitely kick started a huge serving and volunteering habit that I have still to this day.
Speaker 1
So tell me a little bit about this journey with your stepmom to call her mom, to feel that comfort, level of comfort with her. Was it like that just right out of the chute for you or did it take a little while?
Speaker 2
No, right away I wasn't calling her mom or even stepmom just because that was just such a weird title to me. So I would call her by her first name, and she was totally okay with that.
And, obviously, we had kind of a conversation about that at the beginning where she was like, by no means am I replacing your biological mom at all. Like I'm just here. She would call herself a bonus mom or just an extra help and support.
And she really proved to be all of that and so much more. I think that as she was stepping in more and supporting me, loving me, and taking care of me increasingly, my biological mom's presence was kind of decreasing.
At the same time, the transition honestly was pretty smooth into me just wanting to call my stepmom mom.
Speaker 1
Wow. Well, that's great. I know sometimes for kids when one parent is fading away and that's... I mean, your mom.
So you want that relationship to remain, then it makes it harder to step into the relationship with a stepparent for you.
Sounds like it actually sort of helped. You think that's accurate?
Speaker 2
I would say it's accurate for me.
Speaker 1
I'm wondering about your sister.
Speaker 2
No, very different. My sister. My younger sister is holding on to a lot more feelings of wanting to be valued and loved and supported by our biological mom that I kind of had let go of a lot earlier on.
Just I think with our differences in our relationship with her and then how we, I guess, acted or what our roles were at her house, just had a different perspective on where we wanted to be and how we wanted to have a relationship with her.
And so then obviously that translates to a little bit of a more difficult transition with our stepmom. Not that we didn't start calling her mom at the same time or around the same time.
Just. I mean, sometimes younger sisters or siblings just kind of fall in line like that. But I think relationship wise, we were on different pages with both female figures in our lives.
Speaker 1
Did it ever leave you and your sister not getting along because you felt differently about the stepmom or felt differently about what was happening with your biological moment?
Speaker 2
Absolutely, it did. And I think that mixed in with my feelings of responsibility over her really put a huge wedge in our relationship. When we were in high school and middle school, it was a really difficult time between my sister and me. There was a period where I decided I did not want to live at my biological mom's house anymore. I knew that my sister wasn't there yet; she wasn't making that decision on her own, and I couldn't force her to do that with me.
I felt really guilty, feeling like I was abandoning her over there because I couldn't take it anymore. The situation was really not healthy, and that was something I was carrying for a long time. With that different perspective, and now that we weren't even transitioning together back and forth between the homes, it was a really hard period of time for us, for sure.
Speaker 1
Oh, man, I hear your pain there, Amelia. On the one hand, you made a decision that you felt like was best for you. But that meant not being able to live up to that responsibility you felt to kind of look after your sister.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker 1
How did that work itself out in your life? And that pain of not knowing what to do or feeling like no matter what you did, something was wrong or not good. How did you cope with that, really?
Speaker 2
It was all through my youth program at church, honestly. Yeah, I had really, really awesome, dedicated and intentional mentors who were really great at listening.
I mean, obviously no one's blended family life or even just life in general is the same. And so it's hard to offer advice in a situation like this, especially if your family isn't blended.
But I think that just getting the opportunity to talk through my thoughts was helpful for me to figure out what I wanted my decisions to be. And then I was feeling confident because I was so supported by people that I knew cared about me that I could stand firm in what I believed was going to be best, even if it was going to be super difficult to choose.
Speaker 1
Wow. Again, I just want to repeat, I'm so glad you had the option of somebody to talk to, someplace to go.
One of the things we do in our ministry is we try to encourage churches to intervene in that way, to sort of sensitize their children's ministry leaders or their student ministry leaders, or young adult or whatever it is to be able to come along students.
And here you are, a living testimony of how important and helpful that is when they pull that off.
Speaker 2
Yes, I'm so grateful for that too.
Speaker 1
So fast forward a little bit. You and your sister had some difficulty, high school, junior high, for her. Did it get better? Has it sort of just remained where it was?
Speaker 2
Yes, thankfully it did get better in 2020 when everyone was quarantined and everyone was forced to be in super close proximity with one another. My sister and I were the only two people we could really be friends with that were our age, because our younger half-siblings are about a decade apart from us. There’s only so much you have in common with a four-year-old during COVID, you know.
So my sister and I were kind of rebuilding our friendship. Not that we didn’t have a relationship at all, because we’re still siblings and we live in the same house, but we were definitely rebuilding a friendship over that period. It was kind of odd because a lot of it didn’t have much to do with talking about all of the hard experiences that we had gone through together or really even necessarily focusing on working on forgiving each other.
It was just like, hey, that was a huge mess that we both did not see eye to eye on. We recognize that, and that’s okay that we didn’t see eye to eye on that. But this doesn’t have to be our whole life anymore. We can kind of just move on from this moment or from that season, which I know maybe isn’t that way for everybody.
That’s not to say there weren’t some conversations where, you know, one of us or both of us were owning up to some mistakes that we had made that hurt the other person, but it really wasn’t focused on that at all.
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so good. I'm glad you guys were able to repair that relationship.
You mentioned you have a couple of half siblings now, younger half siblings. What's your journey been like for them to come into the world and, you know, family growth and changes?
What was that like for you?
Speaker 2
Honestly, it's been so much fun. Right now I have a 10-year-old sister and a 6-year-old brother, which is, like I said, a pretty big age gap. But I feel like I have never been more excited about life than when I'm around young kids just because they're learning everything for the first time, you know, and everything is so exciting.
So I think it's been a true blessing and helped me see how I can choose joy in a lot of situations where it can be pretty difficult to do that. But yeah, it has never been hard. I mean, I guess for when they're babies and they cry all the time, but that's just something that happens with little kids.
Yes, but welcoming them into the family and honestly, they just have always felt like they were a part of us. So that was not a hard transition either.
Speaker 1
I've heard some people say, of course everybody has to make some adjustment when they have other siblings, and it requires more time from their parents. Right.
So in your case, blended family. Now your dad's got new children, and he's spending time and energy and focused on them. And your stepmom, whom you've come to love and appreciate at some point in that journey, is now also giving time and attention to the younger siblings.
Did that come at any cost for you, or was it just sort of? No, this is a part of our family growing.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, definitely their time was reallocated, but that was never something that came out as a cost to me.
I think they did a really good job of helping me and my other siblings feel like we could have not like ownership in our siblings, but ownership in helping the family and working as a team to just enjoy time together.
And so that was kind of something that was in place before they were pregnant and had our little siblings, so.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Good. I'm glad to hear that. And that older brother that came with the marriage, who you met in the store one day and didn't know why he was there, how has that relationship been?
Speaker 2
It's been so good. It's been fun having an older brother. I was the oldest sibling before.
My parents are now remarried, so it was a little bit awkward at first just because we were so similar. We didn't know how to both be the same person in the house.
But we figured it out, and we have a good relationship now.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Say a little bit more about that.
We've talked before on this program about when two oldest children end up in the house together. Like, it's sort of the pecking order is gone.
Like, we don't know how to do this. Who's in charge around here? Right.
How did you guys work that out?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, luckily he was five. He's five years older than me, so even when I was seven, he definitely was the older brother, oldest sibling kind of figure. But he is just so fun to be around and has just been just as welcoming as my stepmom has been the whole time.
So there was never any of that stereotypical mean older brother stuff that went down. Which, honestly, I'm so grateful for in hindsight. But, yeah, I don't know. Just has been super easy to get along with both of them.
And I'm just really grateful for his care over me too, because now I guess I'm feeling a little bit of that reciprocated. In the way that I was trying to take care of and look out for my younger sister, I have somebody who's doing that for me now, too.
Speaker 1
Hmm. Oh, that's gotta feel good.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 1
You know, that sort of bridges right into the next question I was gonna ask you in a very positive way. What's going on in your home when you feel the most loved, when you feel the most safe in your family? What kinds of things are happening?
Speaker 2
When I feel the most loved and the most safe, I feel like it's just when everyone's at home together.
Just when we get to eat together at home and are hanging out. We recently got into board games, so just quality time, I think, is when I feel the most loved.
Just feeling like everybody is all together.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let's flip it. What's going on in your home or historically you could speak that way if you wanted to. When do you feel the most disconnected or confused about your family?
Speaker 2
That is an interesting question. I don't know that I feel confused about my family, but I think that I guess feeling most confused about what's going on generally maybe is a different direction.
We just have a lot of stuff going on all the time and, you know, trying to keep everything organized so that we can all get to everywhere we're supposed to be. Especially when I didn't have a car. That was so difficult, trying to figure out carpooling schedules.
But now I bought my first car, so everything's okay now.
Speaker 1
Good for you.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Rite of passage. That's good stuff. You know, staying organized. I happen to know your parents have invested and created a website and an app for families who want to try to be organized.
I remember, I think it was your mom, Ginger, saying at one point in a conversation I had with them, just saying, we learned a lot from what we didn't do well, and we want to try to help other people be organized. So we'll put something in the show notes for anybody who wants to get connected to that app. I think it's a great resource.
You know, what we haven't talked about yet is grandparents.
Speaker 2
Grandparents.
Speaker 1
You know, you have a lot of grandparents. I'm curious. Your biological mother sort of faded in your life. I'm not sure if that's still the case now, but at least there was a season where she did. Were her parents still involved?
Speaker 2
Her mom lives out of state, so she wasn't very involved. Her parents are also divorced, which contributes to the distance.
Her dad was around when my sister and I were visiting and going through all that custody stuff with her.
However, since she has faded and is still not active or present in my life, neither is that whole side of the family.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I imagine there's a little sadness there for you, if not a lot.
Speaker 2
There definitely was. I think now, reflecting on that and just the family that I've lost in this experience, I realize that in the moment, or closer to when I decided to kind of close up that chapter for the time being, I wasn't as sad as I was angry.
I just felt very betrayed and hurt. If you love me so much, why are you encouraging her to treat me like this or speak to me this way?
So definitely, feelings have changed and softened.
Speaker 1
But, yeah, so even betrayed by the extended family who seemed to be on your mom's side about how she was doing some things, treating you.
Yeah. And it's sort of an ongoing sorrow. It's out there somewhere.
And day in and day out, you may not really think much about it, but it just sort of hangs around, doesn't it?
Speaker 2
It does, yeah.
Speaker 1
Birthdays, holidays, special days. We're close to Christmas. And so, you know, for some people, that's always a time where they are, again, reminded of the things that they've had to adjust to in life.
You know, the people that may or may not be connected as much as they wish they were. And it's always filled with joy with the people who are connected and available to you. But a little bit of reminder of the stuff that's not there as well.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's true. I think that I guess just some of the traditions that my biological mom's extended family has are always a little different, especially, like I said earlier, with her being raised Jewish.
So I don't. I don't think that I feel that as much, just because now I don't celebrate those Jewish holidays in the winter seasons.
But every once in a while, maybe I'll get a random birthday card or something like that, and that always reopens the vault a little bit of some feelings that I hadn't felt in a long time, for sure.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. If you could ask me a question about blended family life. Is there anything that you just are curious about, past or present?
Speaker 2
Um, honestly, I don't know. I don't think that I thought about just the idea of blended life in so long, because that's just what my life is, is my family.
So maybe if you had asked me this question seven years ago, I probably would have had some questions for you.
But right now, everything feels pretty calm and resolved.
Speaker 1
So that is a good sign, Amelia. It really is. And you don't have to apologize for that. That is really a wonderful thing for you, and I'm so glad that you feel that comfortable and safe and, you know, feel good about your family. That's what we try to do around here in our ministry, is we want more kids, young adults, experiencing exactly what you're experiencing. Christmas around the corner. Some kids and step family say that the holidays, like we said, come with a little bit of a mixed bag of bitter and sweet. Do you get lots of gifts at Christmas, like parents, grandparents do? They all chime in. Is that something you really look forward to? And I'm curious about rituals. This is sort of a big question. You can pick any part of it you want to answer. Rituals in blended families, we think, are really Important, but in the beginning, you really don't have any right. You have to build them over time. But you guys have had a good 10 years to build a lot of those. And so what are you looking forward to?
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I always look forward to having my grandparents over. We see them fairly regularly throughout the year. But this is obviously just a very intentional time for most families. So getting to see grandparents is always good. And then something else that I enjoy, which was kind of implemented at the beginning of blended family living, is now that there's a lot of us in our blended family, there's seven. So we draw sticks of kind of Secret Santa, but it's not a secret because we all write our names on the present that we're getting each other. But that has always been a lot of fun of trying to figure out who has who before we get to see the presents under the tree. And I think that that was really helpful, especially early on in blended family life and just being young. One, it's fun shopping for presents for other people. And then two, I think that helps build a relationship a little bit more between siblings, especially of just looking out for things that this person who I kind of recently have come to know, what do they like, what do they not like? And then I'm feeling love and trying to pick out something special for them, and I'm beginning to care for them more and even love them more in this act of giving and receiving. So that is a ritual that I often look forward to.
Speaker 1
Hey, pro tip, folks who are listening or watching right now. Getting siblings to buy gifts for each other sounds like it can be a helpful thing as they're sort of building those relationships and making those connections. So that was really good. Okay, last question. And it's kind of a broad one. You can pick talk about all of it or just part of it. What's been one of the biggest blessings of your blended family? What's been one of the hardest things about it and. Or what's been one of the biggest surprises?
Speaker 2
Okay. One of the best things that's come from it is just more people who care about me and love me and are willing to do so much for my well being. That is kind of how I've always seen it, even when I was younger. Now there's just more people who want to talk to me and hear about my day. And that just is always a really warm feeling. To have something that was hard was just a lot of growing that I had to do at such a young age and trying to understand new Family dynamics without a roadmap was pretty difficult. Not that there wasn't forgiveness and grace for everyone involved, but that still is a really hard thing to have to tackle, no matter how old you are when that's happening. So that would be the best and the hardest.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much, Amelia, for sharing your life, sharing your journey, and I'm sure a lot of people listening or watching have benefited from this conversation. So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me. It was so good to talk to you.
Speaker 1
So to you, the listener or viewer, if you haven't subscribed yet to this podcast, we sure want to invite you to do that, either through your podcast app or on YouTube because we're going to have more. You don't want to miss them. Hey, I know you're thinking about Christmas gifts for your family, but let me ask you to consider making a year end financial gift to Family Life. Why? Well, because this time of year your money doubles when you give before December 31, tax deductible donations are going to be matched by other donors to the ministry and that helps us continue to reach around the world. Every gift gets doubled. So please pray about what the Lord would have you to do to support our work. Check the show notes. We'll give you a donation link and make it really simple. Remember that the Mindful marriage comes out January 7, 2025, and that it's designed for all marriages. Get your copy today and maybe an extra one for a friend or family member or pastor. Kind of a New Year's gift. Something. Yeah, whatever you think is good. Okay. Next time on Family Life Blended, we're going to hear from some more young voices about what it like to live in a step family. That's next time on Family Life Blended. I'm Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching. Thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible. Family Life Blended is part of the Family Life Podcast Network, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
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