Job Listings | Directory | TV: Decision House & Love Me | 8 Things | Reader comments - 9-13 - 07

Thu Sep 13 17:59:16 EDT 2007

- JOB LISTINGS - IMPORTANT PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOUR POSITION FILLS
- DIRECTORY LISTINGS: LIKEWISE, LET ME KNOW IF CLASSES FILL
- DECISION HOUSE: MARRIAGE IN TROUBLE, SO TAKE IT ON TV
- TELL ME YOU LOVE ME. OPINIONS?
- 8 THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT MARRIAGE
- RETIREMENT COUPLES
- RAISED EYEBROWS

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- JOB LISTINGS - IMPORTANT PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOUR POSITION FILLS
> Diane, How do we post a marriage education job announcement on your site?
> Sean 

Just send it to me via email at diane "at" smartmarriages.com
No fee.  See the format at: http://www.smartmarriages.com/jobs.html
Anyone looking for a job, check frequently for postings. Those listing,
PULEEZE let me know so I can take down your listings when positions have
been filled.  I don't need the emails complaining that people wasted their
time creating targeted resumes, etc.  -d

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- DIRECTORY LISTINGS: LIKEWISE, LET ME KNOW IF CLASSES FILL
Here's a similar issue. It's great that marriage education classes are
filling BUT if you've filled your classes, let me know so I can delete the
listing or post a "FULL" notice -  and cut down on email complaints and
inquiries.  Like the two Terry Real classes that are now full.  I'll post
his new class dates as soon as I get them. And, yes, Terry will be
presenting his New Rules of Marriage in San Francisco.

> Terry Real, Relationship Expert and the Relational Life Institute
> Author of "The New Rules of Marriage".
> Get to the Heart of It: How to Change Couples and Parenting Relationships
> Quickly, Dramatically, and Permanently with Advanced Relational Empowerment
> Skills.For seminar and training information, dates, DVDs, books, and to
> register, visit the website.
> Relational Empowerment Skills Workshop, Boston, MA - Sept 26-28, $1,500.00  -
> FULL     
> Couples Experiential Workshop, Boston, MA - October 22-24, $3,400.00 - FULL
> The Relational Empowerment Practicum Training, Scottsdale, AZ: Oct 14-15
> The Relational Empowerment Advanced Practicum Training, Boston, MA: Nov 5-7
> The Parenting Workshop, Atlanta, GA Nov 2-3; Boston, MA Nov 12-13; New York
> Jan 25-26
> Contact/Oraganizer: Allison Weich
> Website: http://terryreal.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/3
> Email: mailto:aweich at relationallife.com
> Phone: 617-816-7027
> This program provides certification.

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- DECISION HOUSE: MARRIAGE IN TROUBLE, SO TAKE IT ON TV

Television Review | 'Decision House'
The New York Times
Sept 12, 2007

The Marriage Is in Trouble, So They Take It Onto Television
By GINIA BELLAFANTE

During each episode of ³Decision House,² a reality series that starts
tonight on MyNetworkTV, a judge, Lynn Toler, monitors a couple on the verge
of dissolution as they spend three days locked in a bungalow that looks as
if it were a set piece in a West Elm catalog.

The effect is disconcerting: The couples are trying to work out messy and
even insurmountable problems in a trendy-looking, cheerful space. They are
people like Rob and Sally, who, though in their 40s and seemingly old enough
to know better, married impetuously only five weeks after they met.

To say that Sally has had a rough go of it is like calling the Great Flood
of 1927 the result of a nasty storm. ³You were in fact dating another woman
while you were with Sally,² Judge Toler points out to Rob. Judge Toler is
the host of ³Divorce Court,² and the couples here are culled from the same
demographic.

³You have lied,² she continues. ³You called her a slut. You don¹t allow her
to have friends. You were only married for nine months, but you have
physically abused her over a number of hours on more than one occasion.²

Photographs of a bruised Sally appear. We learn that Rob pulled out his
wife¹s hair, hit her and held his hands so firmly around her neck that Sally
thought she was going to die. Rob, an admitted drug user, denies none of
these accusations, responding simply, ³I took it too far.²

We have apparently come a long, regressive way from the era of ³The Burning
Bed,² when television became the culture¹s primary instruction in the
horrors of domestic violence. On ³Decision House² abuse is viewed not as a
problem to escape, but as an issue ‹ like poor communication or forgetting
anniversary presents ‹ to be overcome.

The couples who choose to exploit themselves by appearing on the show are
given 72 hours and some counseling sessions to decide whether to stay
together or divorce, but it seems that only a very sick production team
would offer someone like Sally a shot at trying to figure out how to make
her marriage rosy again.

³Decision House² is irredeemable on both moral and dramatic grounds. It is
grotesque. Like so much on television, it perceives the difficulties of
marriage largely through the lens of its own classism. As the new HBO series
³Tell Me You Love Me² tries to lend further credence to the idea that
problems like sexlessness and infertility are the province of
upper-middle-class marriages, ³Decision House² imagines that it is the less
well off and unsophisticated who beat their wives and describe their
children as lame or pathetic. This is a series that ought to be missed. No,
it ought to be canceled.
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- TELL ME YOU LOVE ME. OPINIONS?
I'm interested in what people thought of the new HBO Series featuring Jane
Alexander as sex therapist and three of her patient couples. Know we're all
probably a bit in shock at the graphic sex/soft porn aspects. No need to
write about that.  I'm curious what you thought about the content.

They identified believable problems - the stress of infertility; a "happy"
busy dual-career couple with young kids and a no-sex marriage; an engaged
couple with commitment jitters. The couples seemed authentic and real and I
think it's good to normalize these issues - get them on the table. But I was
concerned about the dead seriousness. Can good sex exist without a sense of
humor - an appreciation of the absurd/sublime, agony/ecstasy - of it all?
Not so sure this HEAVY dose is going to be good for the bedrooms of America.
Of course, it was only the  first show.  Opinions?  -d

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- 8 THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT MARRIAGE
> Diane, This article is about appreciating your marriage and husband from a
> woman's point of view.  Really a GREAT article ‹ one of the best I¹ve read!
> Please consider sharing with the list.
> 
>  8 Things No One Tells You About Marriage - MSN Lifestyle - Relationships
> 
> http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/couplesandmarriage/articlerb.aspx?cp-do
> cumentid=5352157&page=1
> 
> Bill Chausse

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- RETIREMENT COUPLES
There are a variety of interest groups that meet at the Smart Marriages
conferences.  Maybe it's time to start one for Retirement Couples.
A variety of groups (newlyweds, mentors, health, GLTB) have expressed
interest in meeting this year on opening night. We would schedule these at
the same time the singles have traditionally met at at their combo "seminar
and get-to-know-you" icebreaker event - immediately following the opening
keynote and during the opening night reception. Or, we could schedule this
as one of the early morning interest groups.  Or, arrange "interest tables"
at the banquets. Or, all three. Just takes someone to take the initiative.
Though I know with so much going on there may be no interest in yet another
gathering. 

BTW, we've had some interesting connections made at our singles events.
It's an obvious place for singles to meet other singles interested in having
a Smart Marriage. Of all ages!
- diane 

> Hello Diane,
>     Regarding the Smartmarriages email discussion item on retirement,
> below is the text of an article I recently put on the blog for the National
> Museum of the USAF.
> Dick Cronk
> --------------------------------
> Re: Why I Volunteer
> We males tend to tie our identity to our jobs and we receive social,
> emotional and intellectual stimulation and satisfaction from our jobs. When
> a person retires, they go through an identity crisis. On Oct. 1, 1996, I was
> Dick Cronk, Aeronautical Systems Center Aerospace Engineer. The next day, I
> was Dick Cronk, retired. A nobody.
> 
> We need to find activities that will fill those social, emotional and
> intellectual voids in our life.
> 
> Volunteering in the museum galleries gives me social satisfaction because it
> gives me a reason to clean up, dress up and get out of the house to talk to
> people. (And my wife is glad to get me out of the house one morning each
> week).
> 
> Volunteering in the museum galleries gives me emotional satisfaction because
> I know that I am helping to make a museum visitor's day more informed and
> more interesting and make their overall visit more enjoyable. Sometimes when
> I am on duty near the Missile & Space Gallery, I will see a bored housewife
> waiting for her husband to finish looking at the displays. I'll tell her
> about some of the spinoffs of the space program that she can relate to:
> Corning Ware, Velcro, Pampers disposable diapers, freeze dried foods. Then I
> will tell her to dazzle her significant other with this triva. That really
> makes her day.
> 
> Volunteering in the museum galleries gives me intellectual satisfaction
> because it gives me an opportunity to talk (or listen) intelligently to
> visitors who have flown or maintained the airplanes that are on display.
> 
> There are numerous studies that show that volunteers are happier and
> healthier than non-volunteers, and they live longer. I'm convinced it is
> because volunteering gives us satisfaction and stimulation in our lives. And
> I couldn't think of a better place to volunteer than at the National Museum
> of the USAF.
> 
> Volunteer Dick Cronk
> National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

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- RAISED EYEBROWS

> Hi, Diane--
> 
> What no one's talking about yet is the percentage of STD's (Sexually
> Transmitted Diseases) in the older population, and it really needs to be
> addressed.
> 
> Being "out there,"  there's a lot of sexual activity (or at least wanting it).
> That's as much for women as men. The oldest man who has propositioned me was
> 77.  I just turned 62.
> 
> There's not as much "relationship activity" as there is "sexual activity,"
> from what I can see. And, there are now a lot of women who want to have sex
> without "worrying" about a relationship. Both guys and women tell me
> this.
> 
> I always thought the two went together. Duh! And then I thought it was men who
> were more that way. Now I see that many women don't want the "confines" of a
> relationship either. And since the world has changed in terms of women's
> economic security, there's not as much reason to marry.
> 
> From what I've read, and put together, for women, it depends on the quality
> of the past marriage. If it was widowhood (as it was for me), in the
> long-term, the woman wants to "do it again" if it was viewed as successful,
> nurturant, gratifying generally. If the widow had mixed feelings during the
> marriage, she generally doesn't want to remarry. Been there, done that!
> 
> From what I hear in terms of divorce, women are not necessarily interested in
> remarrying, and a lot like "partialized" relationships -- say, a date once a
> week and talking once or twice during the week. (I'm not yet sure what that
> says, if anything, about exclusivity).
> 
> It's been a real eye-opener.
> 
> I'm going to be moving into the city where there are more eligible men (this
> is a "family suburb"). When I do, I'll be inviting all the single people I now
> know to parties (at my house), sort of potluck; asking them to bring others.
> I'll keep you posted.  Wish me luck.  - anonymous

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