Rodeo Question/Blonde/Sex, Sobriety, Violence - such choices! - 4/03

Fri Apr 25 23:32:03 EDT 2003

subject: Rodeo Q/Blonde/Sex, Sobriety, Violence - such choices! -4/03

from: Smart Marriages®

- WILD WEST RODEO?
- SINGLE BLONDE FEMALE
- COUPLES SEXUAL AWARENESS (and $65 rooms)

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- WILD WEST RODEO?

If you're coming to the Reno Conference, are you planning to attend the
Rodeo?  If you are, would you please reply to this email and tell me
approximately which days/nights you plan to attend?  How many in your party?
Will you have a rental car or will you take the shuttle?

If you're coming to the conference and are NOT planning to attend the Rodeo,
you don't need to reply.

The Reno Rodeo is June 21 - 29, for info:  http://www.renorodeo.com/

#########################
- SINGLE BLONDE FEMALE

Single Blonde Female seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a
very good looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods,
riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter
nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinner will have me eating out of your
hand. Rub me the right way and watch me respond. I'll be at the front door
when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me.  Kiss me and
I'm yours. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy.

Over 15,000 men found  themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society
about an 8-week old blonde Labrador retriever.

Men are so easy ...........if we pay attention to their wants and needs.

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-  COUPLES SEXUAL AWARENESS

Dear Diane, 
Can you explain what Barry McCarthy will cover in his institute?  I
purchased the tape of his 90-minute workshop from the DC conference, and
found it helpful (also entertaining), but I'm having a hard time deciding
between several institutes and would appreciate any guidance you can give.
By the way, I'm a family life minister, not a therapist but the majority of
my work is with couples. I've taken two of the main couples skills courses
at Smart Marriages but find I'd like to be able to do more than apply
communication skills to sex problems.  Maybe even after I know more, I'll
find I still simply apply communication skills to sex problems! but I hope
as I learn more I'll at least be more comfortable raising these issues.  I'd
also like to take the sobriety institute (also seems like I tend to avoid
these issues) but the two are on the same day.

By the way, I was able to get a $65 room today (Fri) when I called the
Nugget.  You said they were sold out of the $65 rate, but I decided to
check, and it paid off.  You might want to let the list know.

Marcia in New Mexico

Marcia, 

I'm very pleased about the news on the $65 rooms.  And, going on the theory
that when one asks, many wonder, I'm going to share not only the news about
the $65 room, but also, the answer to your question about the institute with
the list.  First, you're not the first to complain about the fact that both
the sex and sobriety institutes are scheduled at the same time.  I tell
people: at least the violence (Stosny's Compassion Workshop) institute is at
a different time. 

I also agree that once you've got the basic skills courses down, it is
important to branch out and cover the bases on sex, sobriety, violence,
stepfamilies, parenting, etc.

I'm going to cheat (it's late!) and resurrect part of a reply to someone who
asked almost the same question a year ago.  Except that was asked BEFORE
Barry had ever taught the institute.  This time I can tell you he got rave
"over the top" reviews for the institute last year.  I remember the
attendees came to find me at the end to say they wished the institute could
be three or four days long.  Every single review said it was one of the best
courses they'd ever taken and was oh so helpful.  Here's my reply to the
question from last year :

> Hi - 

> . . . . . Yes, many have told me that
> McCarthy's workshops have helped them in their work with couples - if 90
> minutes helps, I figure  the full two-day training will make a huge
> difference.  He says he's going to give specific guidelines for how to include
> sex in education programs for both premarital and marital couples.  We all
> know that ALL the marriage education programs are sorely lacking this
> component.  I'm convinced that this institute will give people - lay educators
> or counselors and therapists - the confidence and skills they need to include
> sex in their work.  McCarthy is expert in helping therapists in this area -
> but the goal here will be to present techniques and information for use by
> marriage educators.  (And since all therapy is education .....it should work
> for whomever.)
> 
> McCarthy points out that sexual problems are the major cause of separation
> and divorce in the first 3 years of marriage and that the first three years
> is the most common time for extra-marital affairs. It's also the most
> likely time for couples to experience inhibited sexual desire.  And,
> couples don't realize that the period three months before to three months
> after the birth of the first baby precipitates more separations and divorces
> than any other time in a marriage.  Couples need to be prepared and to know
> how to deal with the changes and challenges. Yet we do SO LITTLE to prepare
> couples. Just send them off on the honeymoon and hope for the best.
> Everyone is pretty ignorant about what's normal - and expectations are so
> high.  Just giving couples the facts would help, but McCarthy will present
> skills, approaches, preventive strategies and techniques - how to help
> couples avoid affairs, deal with changing and/or different levels of desire
> and passion, handle secrets and sexually sensitive issues, communicate about
> expectations and about sexual histories and sexual traumas.  I wish we could
> make his institute mandatory - say that people can't teach marriage
> education classes unless they take it. We badly let couples down by not
> including frank discussion of the issues and by not equipping them with
> guidelines and "best practices".

You might want to order his latest book and bone up on things before the
institute.  I think that's the best way to get the most out of the two days.

Click to order: 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0415935512/smartmarriages

Rekindling Desire: A Step-By-Step Program to Help
Low-Sex and No-Sex Marriages
$11.87 Paperback: 256 pgs, 2002,  Carroll & Graf;  ISBN: 0786710152
Guidance couples so desperately need to revitalize low-sex and no-sex
marriages in a ten-step approach that utilizes practical guidelines and
clear exercises that ease couples into working together as an intimate team
to confront the guilt, anger, anxiety, shame ,and inhibitions which trap
them, increase intimacy, pleasuring, and eroticism and develop their own
broad based, flexible couple sexual style. Includes an individualized
relapse prevention program to help couplesgeneralize gains and prevent
relapse. 

I also think that the Learning Sobriety Together Institute is, as you say,
just as sorely needed and will be just as valuable in your work. It too,
will focus on helping those teaching marriage education courses to tackle
the issues of substance abuse and maintenance of sobriety.   Maybe you'll
have to flip a coin.  -  diane

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7th annual Smart Marriages conference/RENO, Nevada
June 26-29, 2003  http://www.smartmarriages.com/conferencedetails.html

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd NW,   Washington, DC 20015-1961
www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332 FAX 202-362-0973
cmfce at smartmarriages.com