ABC News needs you/Oprah/Bashing - 4/05

Tue Apr 19 18:30:33 EDT 2005

- LOOKING FOR COUPLE OR INDIVIDUAL
- OPRAH: HUSBAND-FOCUSED MOMMY
- THERAPY BASHING 

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- ABC NEWS LOOKING FOR COUPLE OR INDIVIDUAL

ABC News channel is looking for a person or couple that has experienced
disappointment with marital therapy to either "call in" or go in to the
studio in NYC for a segment tomorrow morning, Wed April 20, at 10:55am.  I
will also be on this one.  If you can do it, or you know someone who might
do it, PLEASE contact the producer immediately:

Eloise Harper  Eloise.M.Harper at abc.com
ABC News
47 W. 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
212-456-2864
212-456-4441

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- OPRAH: HUSBAND-FOCUSED MOMMIES

On March 27, 2005, in a Sunday NY Times article "Truly, Madly, Guiltily",
Ayelet Waldman explained that she loved her husband more than she loved her
kids.  She said she felt defensive about it in our child-focused culture.
Oprah is scheduled
to have Ayelet on show tomorrow and Roland Warren, President of the National
Fatherhood Initiative, will be on the show as well.

Here are some clips from the article:

> HAVE been in many mothers' groups - Mommy and Me, Gymboree, Second-Time Moms
> - and each time, within three minutes, the conversation invariably comes
> around to the topic of how often mommy feels compelled to put out. Everyone
> wants to be reassured that no one else is having sex either. These are women
> who, for the most part, are comfortable with their bodies, consider
> themselves sexual beings. These are women who love their husbands or
> partners. Still, almost none of them are having any sex.
> 
> There are agreed upon reasons for this bed death. They are exhausted. It
> still hurts. They are so physically available to their babies - nursing,
> carrying, stroking - how could they bear to be physically available to
> anyone else? 
> 
> But the real reason for this lack of sex, or at least the most profound, is
> that the wife's passion has been refocused. Instead of concentrating her
> ardor on her husband, she concentrates it on her babies. Where once her
> husband was the center of her passionate universe, there is now a new sun in
> whose orbit she revolves. Libido, as she once knew it, is gone, and in its
> place is all-consuming maternal desire. There is absolute unanimity on this
> topic, and instant reassurance.
> 
> Except, that is, from me.
> 
> I am the only woman in Mommy and Me who seems to be, well, getting any. This
> could fill me with smug well-being. I could sit in the room and gloat over
> my wonderful marriage. I could think about how our sex life - always vital,
> even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first
> met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations
> to see if they have any exciting new toys. I could even gaze pityingly at
> the other mothers in the group, wishing that they too could experience a
> love as deep as my own. . . . . .

> I wish some learned sociologist would publish a definitive study of
> marriages where the parents are desperately, ardently in love, where the
> parents love each other even more than they love the children. It would be
> wonderful if it could be established, once and for all, that the children of
> these marriages are more successful, happier, live longer and have healthier
> lives than children whose mothers focus their desires and passions on them.

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- THERAPY BASHING 

> Diane, This is beginning to feel like an "anti-counseling" (marital) web-site.
> Sure they're parishioners out there who coach couples to "bail" too early.  Do
> you really believe that counseling is the cause of marriage break-up, ie, that
> if a couple had not tried therapy, they would not get divorced? Sometimes it
> is better to get divorced than live with someone who is emotionally/physically
> abusive.   Do you really favor legislation where couples are mandated to stay
> married regardless of the circumstances?
> 
> John Helf, LCSW
> Mental Health Solutions
> Madison, WI 

I see you've been to the Smart Marriages Conference twice...you must have
realized that the majority of those in the Coalition ARE counselors or
therapists.  We are FOR increasing access to Marriage EDUCATION. We believe
that Marriage Education can go a long way in strengthening marriages --
making them stronger, safer and more satisfying -- prevent lots of problems
upsteam and help people avoid martial breakdown. That is our mission, clear
and simple.  We're not against therapy or counseling.  We don't think
marital therapy CAUSES divorce -- just like we don't think open heart
surgery causes heart disease.  We do believe educational approaches can have
the greatest effect in turning things around -- even for couples at the end
stages.  And, where did you get that last question/impression -- that anyone
in Smart Marriages is favoring legislation to force couples to stay married?
Please do point out to me what you read on the list or website or wherever
that gave you that impression.  I want to fix whatever is giving you that
impression.  - diane

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