More on Barna Study/ Dancing & Marriage/ Army Marriage innovations / Hitched and Happy - 4/6/08

[Smartmarriages]

- OOOPS: POOR CHOICE OF WORDS
- STUDY: CHRISTIAN DIVORCE RATE IDENTICAL TO NATIONAL AVERAGE
- WHAT DO DANCING AND MARRIAGE HAVE IN COMMON?
- AFTER WAR, LOVE CAN BE A BATTLEFIELD: SUE JOHNSON AND HOLD ME TIGHT
- HITCHED AND HAPPY: OPERATION US

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- OOOPS: POOR CHOICE OF WORDS
I sent a post on Friday April 4 about website optimization and it seems I
choose an unfortunate subject line.  I'm told that many junk filters
rejected it.  You might want to check your junk file.  Subject line starts
with "Please Read".

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- STUDY: CHRISTIAN DIVORCE RATE IDENTICAL TO NATIONAL AVERAGE
The Christian Post
April 4, 2008 

This is a more helpful analysis than the article on the Barna study I sent
earlier. I said helpful, not optimistic.  It's UP TO US to supply the
reasons for optimism and to reverse this trend. - d

TREND: 
> "Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to
> last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility," Barna
> noted. "There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward
> embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or
> three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life."


Study: Christian Divorce Rate Identical to National Average

After months of revived debate over divorce and its increasing acceptance
among Americans, a new study affirmed born again Christians are just as
likely as the average American couple to divorce.

The Barna Group found in its latest study that born again Christians who are
not evangelical were indistinguishable from the national average on the
matter of divorce with 33 percent having married and divorced at least once.
Among all born again Christians, which includes evangelicals, the divorce
figure is 32 percent, which is statistically identical to the 33 percent
figure among non-born again adults, the research group noted.

"There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now
seen as an unavoidable rite of passage," George Barna, who directed the
study, stated in the study, which was released Monday (March 30, 2008).

Results of the study come less than a year after a high-profile Christian
couple ­ Randy and Paula White ­ announced their decision to split,
reigniting debates over divorce trends in the Christian community and
whether Scripture allows divorce.

While a higher proportion of born again Christians marry (84 percent)
compared to the national average (78 percent), recent trends indicate that
Americans are growing more comfortable with divorce.

"Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage
to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility," Barna
noted. "There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward
embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or
three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult
life."

Still, the divorce rate among evangelical Christians ­ who are defined as
meeting the born again criteria plus other conditions ­ was lower (26
percent) than the national average. Meanwhile, those associated with a
non-Christian faith were more likely to divorce (38 percent), the study
showed.

Other population segments least likely to have been divorced include
Catholics (28 percent), Asians (20 percent), adults who graduated from
college and whose annual household income is $75,000 or more (22 percent),
and adults who deem themselves to be conservative on social and political
matters (28 percent).

Divorce was at a higher rate among Baby Boomers (38 percent), African
Americans (36 percent), adults who did not attend college and with lower
household income (39 percent), and people who consider themselves to be
liberal on social and political matters (37 percent).

Thirty percent of atheists and agnostics had been married and subsequently
divorced, but The Barna Group pointed out that they have lower rates of
marriage (65 percent) and a higher likelihood of cohabitation.

The study is based on interviews with a random sample of 5,017 adults, age
18 and older, from January 2007 through January 2008.

Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
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-  WHAT DO DANCING AND MARRIAGE HAVE IN COMMON?

Marriage Matters: Come dance with me
By James and Audora Burg
Sturgis Journal
April 4, 2008 

What do dancing and marriage have in common? Among other things, partners
are wise to avoid stepping on each other's toes, in both the literal and
metaphorical sense.

Marriage education folks commonly use dance as a metaphor for marriage, and
the toe-stepping is an obvious example to link the two.

However tired the metaphor is, it took on fresh significance for Audora last
Saturday night, when she watched a couple couples dancing to live music at a
local coffeehouse.

The pairs danced in different styles. One couple held each other tightly and
did a tentative two-step while the other boxed-out a restrained waltz as
befit the space available.

Such different steps and styles, but remarkably similar body language was on
display. The affection and attachment of the couples was easy to see and
beautiful to behold.

So as Audora sipped her coffee and wistfully wished that Jim could have been
there to share the moment (but not the dance floor), she reflected that
there are as many unique ways of doing marriage together as there are of
dancing together, and both are a learned process.

The late Paul Pearsall, neuropsychologist and best-selling author of 18
books, noted "Marriage, families, all relationships are more a process of
learning the dance rather than finding the right dancer."

Is it learning the dance, or making it up together as you go? Because what
works for one couple spells disaster for another.

Consider conflict style. We've written before about our low threshold for
intensity and conflict and how easily our emotional circuit breaker trips to
temporarily shut off situations that threaten to escalate. We come back
together to resolve the issue at hand, but in a manner that works for us.

We have long-married friends who would be utterly bored with this approach.
What we find placid and safe they find distressingly dull.

These friends are all-around high-intensity. They play with gleeful
intensity, they fight with raging intensity, they come together to make up
with passionate intensity. What they find stimulating and rewarding we would
find frightening and unsafe.

To venture into the culinary realm, it's like two chefs seasoning the same
cut of steak, drawing on radically different flavor profiles. What pleases
one palate, or relationship, would not appeal to another.

Individual tastes aside, there are some definite truisms common to healthy
marriages. Marriage researcher John Gottman has extensively documented these
specific behaviors, a few of which include accepting influence from each
other, turning toward each other (instead of away), and soft starts
(particularly by women) when discussing areas of conflict.

Couples craft their own relational dances. The healthiest couples build
their patterns on the same foundational principles Gottman has observed.

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- AFTER WAR, LOVE CAN BE A BATTLEFIELD: SUE JOHNSON AND HOLD ME TIGHT

After War, Love Can Be a Battlefield
New York Times - United States
April 6, 2008 

These days the Army is fighting a problem as complex and unpredictable as
any war: disintegrating marriages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/fashion/06marriage.html?hp

This article features Sue Johnson who will present a keynote and training
Institute at Smart Marriages San Francisco.  To answer two frequent
questions, everyone registered for the conference is admitted to the Sat
morning keynote (no need to sign up for it independently - it's included)
and there is still room in her Institute.

>  904 One Day - Sunday, July 6, 8:30am- 5:30pm
> Hold Me Tight: Strengthening the Bonds of Love
> Sue Johnson, EdD
> Understand the exquisite logic of love ­ the concept of "effective
> dependency"; the cycles that sabotage a felt sense of connection; the music of
> the relationship dance; and, finally, how to shape conversations that will
> foster a secure lasting bond between partners. $50 spouse discount. Click for
> more information: http://www.smartmarriages.com/eft.html
> 
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- HITCHED AND HAPPY: OPERATION US
Building a better marriage
News-Leader 
Sony Hocklander
April 6, 2008 

[BRAVO to Jennifer Baker and the Ozarks Marriage Initiative folks for
another long and helpful article in today's paper.  Especially check out the
helpful sidebar that accompanies the piece. I'll reprint the sidebar below
as example of what you can do locally. - diane)

Relationship education classes, like the federally-funded Operation Us, help
couples strengthen their commitment and enhance quality of time spent
together.


Springfield, Missouri - Elani and Kevin Johnson of Clever say they are
committed to each other for life. They love each other and their marriage of
12 years works for the most part, they say. But raising two sons, 5 and 8
--the youngest with special needs -- put a strain on their time and their
relationship.

"We are polar opposites. He's laid-back and real quiet, and I'm obnoxious
and impatient. He's a homebody, and I always want to be out doing stuff,"
Melani Johnson says. "Mainly, we would get to the point where I would get
mad and quit communicating, and he would get frustrated with me."

They wanted to strengthen their marriage and knew they needed help to
reconnect. So they signed up for Hitched and Happy, one of numerous free
relationship education classes presented by Operation Us, a federally-funded
program of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology.

. . . "Your relationships are not neutral. They matter to your vocation, to
your children and to your own physical health and well being," she says
(Jennifer Baker).

That's why the Administration of Children and Family, part of the United
States Department of Health and Human Services, initiated funding for
relationship education programs like Operation Us, Baker says.

"Most people, on average, make a good choice the first time around. Then,
they hit a rough spot in the road and they don't get the support, or they
don't have the background to try to see it through that. Maybe they have
communication problems. They don't know how to resolve conflict. And they
are always fighting," she says.

"They hate that, so they throw in the towel."

Relationship classes won't eliminate all divorce.

"Nor should we," Baker says. "But it can be reduced. Especially because the
majority of people say they want to be married."
---------------------
SIDEBAR: 
WHY MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR YOU:
- Married men and women generally live longer than single men and women.
- Previously married men and women tend to be considerably less happy and
more distressed than married people.
- Married people have more, and better, sex than unmarried people.
- Though most men and women who divorce will remarry, second marriages fail
at a higher rate than first marriages.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MARRIAGE
- Accept responsibility for your part in a relationship, Boyce says. Ask
yourself: "What am I contributing to this marriage? And what am I
contributing to the problems in this marriage?"
- Try harder to meet each other's core needs to strengthen your bond, Boyce
suggests.
- And establish a regular date night. "It doesn't have to cost much money,"
Boyce says.
- Spend more time trying new and challenging activities together, Baker
says.
- And develop daily rituals of connection, "whether that's walking the dog
together or sharing a bowl of ice cream at the end of the day."
- Initiate conversation-starters that have nothing to do with getting junior
to soccer practice or paying the bills, Baker suggests. If nothing else,
purchase one of those 101-question books to help you start --an activity she
presents in the Hitched and Happy class she teaches.
- Learn to listen better. One skill Baker teaches is how to paraphrase what
you hear from your partner. After one partner speaks his or her piece
without interruption, the other paraphrases what they heard. Then, partners
switch roles.
- Try learning your partner's preferred love style, such as those discussed
in the book "The Five Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman. What way is most
meaningful to your partner to feel loved? For instance, Baker says, some
people need to hear it with words. Others want loving actions, such as
offering to wash the dishes. Some feel most loved by spending time together.
Others through physical touch.
- If you decide to go for counseling, Baker recommends you choose a
marriage-friendly therapist, "someone who understands that you work on the
relationship until (the couple) tells you 'We're done.'"
- Don't give up too easily, Boyce stresses. There's more hope for
strengthening --or even saving --a marriage than many couples realize while
in the midst of working through problems.
"Just because they don't know the answer," he says, "doesn't mean there
isn't one. There is help if they reach out for it."

WANT TO TAKE A CLASS?
Operation Us is a federally- funded program that's part of Forest Institute
of Professional Psychology. It features free relationship education classes
for married couples, singles, teens, dating or engaged couples, stepfamilies
and expectant couples. Most classes require a refundable $20 deposit and
include child care and a meal. Registration is required. Call 823-3469 or
visit www.operationus.org.
Classes include:
- Hitched and Happy, a hands-on interactive workshop that helps couples have
safer, healthier relationships. The workshop has rolling enrollment, meaning
couples can join any time. The class meets from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 9,
16, 23, 30, May 7, 21 and 28 at Chesterfield Family Center, 2511 W. Republic
Road.
- Couple Connection, a workshop for people who are dating, married or
remarried, is about divorce prevention and relationship enhancement. Dates
and locations vary.

For the full article: http://tinyurl.com/3petts

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