Hate My Marriage/ Mr Combs/ Stepparents / Infidelity Prevention Tah Dah/ Team Sport / Bro-Mances/ Grants - 4/8/08

[Smartmarriages]

- I HATE MY MARRIAGE
- OR, THIS: MARKETING IDEA FOR MARRIAGE STRENGTHENING
- BANQUET TICKETS FOR GUESTS?
- ON MR COMBS
- SURVEY NEEDS STEPPARENTS
- TAH DAH: WONDERFUL NEW INFIDELITY PREVENTION RESOURCE
- HERE'S ONE FOR THE MEN: MARRIAGE AS TEAM SPORT
- SIGN OF THE TIMES: BRO-MANCES
- HEALTHY MARRIAGE RESEARCH GRANTS

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- I HATE MY MARRIAGE

> Diane, 
> Now, here's a new way to grab attention about "marriage."  I was driving down
> a highway yesterday in Orlando, Florida, and noticed a HUGE billboard that
> simply read in gigantic letters: IHateMyMarriage.us.  I can only imagine how
> many thousands of people jotted down the information as they drove by.  I was
> angered that this would be permitted, and I immediately started to think about
> how I could "counter" the billboard.  When I arrived home, I went to the web
> site: http://www.IHateMyMarriage.us.  It is a new PRO marriage organization in
Central Florida!
>  
> Sheryl P. Kurland
> Relationship/Marriage Trainer

######################
- OR, THIS: MARKETING IDEA FOR MARRIAGE STRENGTHENING

This article explains how the housing market is making it more difficult to
divorce. If a couple can't sell the marital home, they can't afford a
divorce. We could turn this to our advantage with billboards that read:
"Divorce impossible because you can't sell your house? Let's renovate your
marriage, instead!"

Market slump makes divorce more difficult
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/05/BUKJVUP80.DTL>
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA

################

- BANQUET TICKETS FOR GUESTS?

> Hi Diane, 
> Are the Harville Hendrix and Bill Doherty banquets open to non-registered
> guests? I see the John Gray one is open.
> Susan
> 
The John Gray Saturday Night Live event is open to the public. Tickets for
non-conference attendees is $55.  This event does not include a meal. Note
that it is included in the full Conference or the Saturday only
registrations. You only need to purchase tickets for guests who are not
registered for the conference.

Although public cannot purchase tickets to the BANQUETS, anyone who is
registered for the conference or an Institute, can purchase a ticket for a
guest to attend the banquet.

If you want to bring a guest to the banquet, contact the registrar (by phone
651-487-9469 or email jillian at cmehelp.com) and add guests for $39 each.  The
$39 covers the meal and the keynotes presentation.

The guest's banquet "ticket" will appear on your badge. Which means you have
to enter the banquet doors together.

Diane 

#######################
- ON MR COMBS

> Mr. Combs did not "know how" to become a multi-millionaire. He did not see his
> parents do that either, and yet he did it. His "I don't know how to do
> marriage" is an excuse and a cop out.  - L Bland

######################
- SURVEY NEEDS STEPPARENTS

Diane, More than 50 people have responded since you forwarded my "plea" for
respondents. Unfortunately, 99% of the respondents have no stepchildren. Can
you possibly ask for respondents from stepparents by Friday?
Mary E Heck 
MSW graduate program
SWSA Leadership Team
Temple University

> - 10 MIN "LOVE STYLES" SURVEY - APRIL 11 CLOSING DATE
> 
> I got a request this morning from another student that needs survey data.
> She politely asked ­ saying she realizes I may not want to inundate the list
> with survey requests.  Let's try to help - this is a short one on
> parenting/love styles - like the Chapman Love Language model.
> Requirements: married or cohabiting with children of any age (bio or step)
> still living at home. Thanks for helping. - d
> -------
> 
> The purpose of this study is to examine how family members demonstrate love
> for their children and/or step children and if emotional love styles are
> similar and reciprocated. My end goal is to create a pre-marital EDUCATIONAL
> PROGRAM based on the results.
>  
> The survey takes only 10 minutes. Participants are asked to read the love
> style descriptions and rank first and second preferences for you, your
> children and if applicable, your stepchildren.
> 
> All information will remain confidential. Participation is through Survey
> Monkey ( a data collector ) and there is no way the information from the
> data can be traced back to you as no identifying data is asked on the
> survey. 
>  
> Link for survey:
> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=UjmhKfxd55phJjDclORfkA_3d_3d
> 
> survey response cut off: Friday, 4/11/08
>  
> If you have questions, please contact Mary Heck, MSW grad student researcher
> at Temple University, <mailto:mheck at temple.edu>
>  
> ########################

- TAH DAH: WONDERFUL NEW INFIDELITY PREVENTION RESOURCE

Peggy Vaughan has just released her new book "Preventing Affairs" in pdf
format on her website.  The book, based on a comprehensive infidelity survey
and Peggy's many years of experience, gives us a wonderful tool to help
couples face the realities - in advance. We know that's not easy.  Couples
want to believe infidelity won't happen to them. Peggy addresses this with
her right-to-the-point subtitle: "You CAN have a monogamous marriage, but
not by just assuming you're immune."

To celebrate this straight-talking, practical book Peggy has also launched a
new website specifically focused on PREVENTION where you can order the book
but also find numerous free resources:
http://www.preventingaffairs.com <http://www.preventingaffairs.com/

You'll see that Peggy is generous in her praise of Smart Marriages - she
thanks the many of you that participated in the survey and even credits her
keynote experience at Smart Marriages as birthing this latest prevention
project. From the the book's intro:

> "I became more serious about working on prevention after making a Keynote
> speech on Preventing Affairs at the 1999 SmartMarriages Conference. During my
> presentation, I offered a professional assessment of the issue. Then at the
> conclusion of my talk, I unexpectedly broke into tears when I talked about
> wanting to protect my three granddaughters from growing up to be as vulnerable
> as past generations.
> 
> "This personal concern provided additional motivation for working toward more
> understanding of what's involved in preventing affairs. I don't want future
> generations to continue this pattern of simply assuming monogamy - without the
> tools that are so critical to maintaining a long-term monogamous marriage."
 
Peggy is the founder of the Beyond Affairs Network (BAN) which will receive
the Smart Marriages Impact Award in San Francisco. She is also author of
classic Monogamy Myth, and founder and director of http:www.dearpeggy.com

#######################
- HERE'S ONE FOR THE MEN: MARRIAGE AS TEAM SPORT

This is a great one for men - especially those who've made it a few years
and can feel the pride.  - d

Marriage, athletics take a lot of work
Carroll County Times (Maryland)
By Robert "Bird" Brown, Times Rec Writer
April 06, 2008

This week, my wife and I celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. Feel free
to send her condolences. If she didn’t know what type of sports life she had
in front of her in the two years of courtship, then having our reception
planned at the same time and location as the annual Towson vs. Loyola
lacrosse game should have driven home the point. Not only were we only given
three, yes three, parking spaces because of the game, we lost half of the
wedding party (my half obviously) to watch the game from the sidelines. It’s
a good thing they didn’t know the Dead were playing in Cincinnati that
night.

Nineteen years of anything is a lot, but couples staying married for that
long are becoming scarce and it’s something I’m most proud of. Of the
couples that got married in the same year that we were, only 52% of us are
still married to the same person. We are nowhere near the longevity of many
couples, but to put things into perspective for how long ago that was, in
the same year we were married, tens of thousands of Chinese students took
over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest for freedom, Mikhail Gorbachev
was elected president of the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall fell after 28
years and the U.S. invaded Panama to capture Manuel Noriega.

All of those significant events in world history are now being taught in the
classrooms of the students that I coach and yet we were lucky enough to have
lived through it. There are many, many lessons that we’ve learned over the
years of being together that also share a foundation with the lessons you
can teach and learn with participation in sports.

It’s all about doing the hard work. Too many times when things get hard or
complicated, human nature steers us toward the easy path. We try to take
shortcuts that we think will get us the same result, but without putting in
the hard work we don’t set the foundation for what will get us through when
things become difficult. There’s no substitute for putting all of your
energies into reaching your goal.

You must be able to pull your end of the weight. Your commitment to the
common good is of utmost importance. It is said that a good marriage is a
50/50 partnership and there’s something to be said for that. We need to be
prepared to give 100%, because if someone’s not pulling their 50%, then you
won’t ever be at full strength. Sometimes it’s 60/40, sometimes 80/20. In
sports, you can’t always get everyone on the team to give their best all the
time, so the rest of the players need to be playing at the top of their game
to compensate for anyone who falls back.

Sacrifice is a key element of any partnership. Once you make a decision to
not go it alone, the needs and wants of your teammates have to weigh into
any future decisions or activities to make sure that you are working for the
common good. Sometimes you want to play quarterback, but the team needs you
at middle linebacker. You may not like it, but because the team needs you to
perform at its best, you make the sacrifice for your teammates.

What makes things really successful is when you can accomplish what’s good
for the “team” yet maintain your individuality. As the author May Sarton
wrote, “No partner…should feel that he has to give up an essential part of
himself to make it viable”. For that, I’m grateful.

Copyright 2008 Robert Brown
#######################
- SIGN OF THE TIMES: BRO-MANCES

To help us stay on top of the trends and terminology....diane

Bromances aren't uncommon as guys delay marriage
By KATHERINE BINDLEY
Columbia News Service

NEW YORK — In a 2007 episode of NBC's hospital-based comedy "Scrubs," the
show's two main characters, J.D. and Turk, break into a musical duet
proclaiming their mutual affection. "Guy love. That's all it is," the song
goes. "Guy love, he's mine, I'm his. There's nothing gay about it in our
eyes." . . . 

But close male friendship isn't just a quirky television fantasy or a
running gag in the movies. Real-life bromances are everywhere. Kevin
Collier, 26, a New Jersey construction manager, has lots of manly things in
common with his best friend, including but not limited to, "tattoos,
motorcycles and chicks," as Collier put it. But that hasn't stopped his
friends from accusing him of having a "man crush" on his best friend Don
Carlo-Clauss, 28, a semiprofessional fighter whose day job is in marketing.


In no rush to settle down

Experts say the prevalence of these friendships can in part be explained by
the delay in major life milestones. Fifty years ago, a man could graduate
from college, get a job and get married all within a couple of months. But
today's men are drifting, as opposed to jumping, into the traditional notion
of adulthood.

"The transition to adulthood is now taking about a decade longer than it
used to," said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook
University in New York whose upcoming book is called "Guy Land: The Perilous
World Where Boys Become Men." One set of men Kimmel interviewed for the book
were fraternity brothers at Dartmouth College. Following graduation, seven
of them squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment in Boston.

Financial pressures help fuel bromances because they make living with a
roommate a sensible option. In addition, men are getting married later — an
average age of 27, according to a 2007 report by the National Marriage
Project at Rutgers University, up from the average marrying age of 23 in
1960. Men with more education are marrying even later, in their 30s.

David Popenoe, director of the marriage project and an emeritus professor of
sociology at Rutgers, cited the acceptance of premarital sex and the greater
numbers of men and women who live together as reasons for the delay in
marriage.

For the full article: http://tinyurl.com/67fwqa
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- HEALTHY MARRIAGE RESEARCH GRANTS

Research Grants on African American Marriage and Health

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the
Department of Health and Human Services has contracted Mathematica Policy
Research, Inc. (MPR) to commission a series of research briefs examining the
link between marriage and health in the African American community.

MPR plans to fund up to six proposals at $10,000 per award.  Proposals are
due April 30, 2008.

For the full RFP, see http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/amhr/index.asp

##########################

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