Childless!! / 'Smart' Marriage Evolve / We Used to Know what Infidelity Was.....7/9/08

[Smartmarriages]

- TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: CHILDLESS IN EUROPE
- 'SMART' MARRIAGE EVOLVES
- 'WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FAITHFUL' BLURRED IN MODERN WORLD
-'HAPPY ENOUGH' COUPLES FALL PREY TO INFIDELITY, TOO

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- TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: CHILDLESS IN EUROPE
New York Times Sunday Magazine
June 29, 2008 

It's long. Don't make the mistake of starting to read it and then getting
busy and forgetting to get back to it. Print it out and make time to read
the whole thing with its amazing mind-bending paradoxes about working
mothers being GOOD for fertility and down to the last sobering line...."You
can't have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home."  You also
cannot be effective in our marriage education/marriage strengthening field
and not be aware of what the sociologists/demographers are finding....what's
coming if we don't row like crazy.  Which reminds me of the guy who came up
to me in San Francisco and asked if I could figure a way to apply for CE
credits for reading the newslist!  He said it's his main source of
continuing education and frustrating that he can't get CE for it. He was
serious. At least it gave me a good warm belly laugh. I don't think there is
any chance.  We'd have to come up with a test.  - diane

For the Childless in Europe article, go here:
http://tinyurl.com/5goavc

This Childless article is a companion piece to the John Van Epp keynote
"Waiting to Marry" (that you must watch - order session #758-003 here:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/uploaded/Playback.08.orderform.pdf) and also a
companion piece to the latest must-read trend-predicting report from the
National Marriage Project:

Cohabitation, Marriage and Child Wellbeing: A Cross-National Perspective
David Popenoe, The National Marriage Project, June 2008
http://www.smartmarriages.com/uploaded/Cohabitation.Report.Popenoe.08.pdf

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- 'SMART' MARRIAGE EVOLVES
(It's so nice that Cheryl is tracking our progress!)
The Washington Times
Wetzstein on Family
Cheryl Wetzstein
July 1, 2008

Ten years ago this summer, I swooped in on one of Washington's many
conferences.

Its theme was "smart marriages" and "happy families."

Do tell, I thought.

I met quite a cast of characters. John and Julie Gottman of Seattle talked
about the "four horsemen" of the marital apocalypse. Michele Weiner-Davis of
Illinois talked about "divorce-busting."

Dr. Frank Pittman of Georgia talked about, uh, eating disorders? To make
marriage work, he said, "we need to get into it all the way Š . Put divorce
in the category of cannibalism. It's not something you're going to do."

The queen of this conference was a blond dynamo named Diane Sollee.

"Marriage is not a crapshoot. It's not about whether you're lucky in love,"
she told me as she wrestled with boxes for display tables.

There are skills couples can learn to help them relate to each other better,
she said. What's needed is "marriage education."

This week, the Smart Marriages conference convenes for the 12th time. When I
covered it in 1998, there were probably 500 people there, counting waiters.
Now, more than 2,000 participants will cram into plenary sessions, workshops
and training sessions.

What has a decade's worth of gabbing about a "marriage renaissance" wrought?

For starters, a handful of states give couples a break on marriage-license
fees if they get premarital counseling. Some high schools now offer marriage
and relationship education.

Products and services aimed at creating and maintaining good marriages have
become well-known. Pastor Mark Gungor of "Laugh Your Way to a Better
Marriage" and John Gray of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" are
just two of the people whose messages spread thanks to a spotlight at a
Smart Marriages conference.

Nationally, the Bush administration and Congress have given marriage a
financial boost.

In 2006, the Health and Human Services Department's Administration for
Children and Families (ACF) awarded $118 million a year to 225 pro-marriage
and responsible-fatherhood groups. The total investment over five years
should approach $750 million once administrative and technical assistance
funds are added in.

These grants were a quantum leap in funding, ACF aides told me. Previous ACF
grants had amounted to about $20 million a year for marriage and $4 million
a year for fatherhood.

This year's Smart Marriages conference, which officially starts Wednesday in
San Francisco, includes sessions on the "next marrying generation," Ms.
Sollee said.

For instance, John Van Epp, author of "How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk
(Jerkette)," is scheduled to explore the pros and cons of delaying marriage.
Bill Doherty, professor of family studies at the University of Minnesota,
will talk about how parents can "intentionally" prepare their children to
have good marriages.

Canadian psychologist Sue Johnson will talk about "Hold Me Tight," her new
book on emotional connectedness. "I go to Smart Marriages," she told me,
"because I feel it's a part of a whole movement that says relationships
matter so much, and we cannot afford to lose them to chance anymore."

Many people I have talked to over the years said that attending one of these
conferences motivated them to read a book about marriage, take a class, get
some therapy or otherwise change their lives.

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- 'WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FAITHFUL' BLURRED IN MODERN WORLD
We used to know what infidelity was.....

So many of the workshops address the issues raised in these excellent
articles by Sharon Jayson including the MANY sessions on attachment - a
prevailing theme at this year's conference including Harville Hendrix and
Helen LaKelly Hunt's wonderful opening banquet; Sue Johnson's Hold Me Tight
Attachment keynote; the Sex Starved Wife keynote by Weiner-Davis and
Marriage Integrity by Love and McFadden; Gary Chapman's Love Languages
keynote; Bill Doherty's banquet keynote on Raising Children for Good
Marriages (and, thus, being able to stay attached to our grandchildren); and
Cloe Madanes and John Gray's keynotes filled with specific strategies and
techniques to strengthen couples connections and attachments.  And, there
were all the incredible workshops and institutes on sex and infidelity.
Mark Laaser again got raves on his PORN/INTERNET SEX ADDICTION workshop and
Institute and he promises to return in Orlando.  See here for lists of the
sex/infidelity sessions: http://www.smartmarriages.com/sex.track.html
- diane 

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
June 30, 2008 
We used to know what infidelity was: sex with someone other than your mate.

But the 21st century seems to have blurred those clear-cut lines. Is having
lunch every day with an opposite-sex work friend a breach of marital trust?
What about a flirtation online? If there's no sex, is it really cheating?

HAPPY?: It may not prevent an affair

Such questions arise as societal and psychological pressures challenge
deep-rooted ideas about the nature of infidelity. "We are as a society
finally coming to grips with what it means to be faithful," says Douglas
Snyder, a psychologist at Texas A&M University-College Station. "It doesn't
just mean to have sex with someone else."

Many psychologists and family experts say that infidelity today is not just
about sex but about trust, betrayal and marital disloyalty, even if adultery
is not part of the picture. They add that marriages are more vulnerable than
they were decades ago: In tough economic times, couples work harder to make
ends meet, which often leaves little time or energy to nurture the
relationship. Movies and TV seem to glamorize affairs and make marriage
appear dull. And the Internet offers a new frontier, with the
pseudo-intimacy of cyber-relationships, as well as greater access to
pornography.

Added to all this: Research suggests those who have affairs aren't
necessarily unhappy with their partners.

"People are getting this incredible message that if you're not hot and
having a certain kind of Hollywood-style sex, something is wrong with you,"
says clinical psychologist Sue Johnson of Ottawa, Canada.

Johnson, author of the book HOLD ME TIGHT, and psychiatrist Frank Pittman
are among presenters at the SMART MARRIAGES CONFERENCE, which begins
Wednesday in San Francisco and will include sessions on extramarital
affairs.

"I run across people who think everybody is messing around and something is
wrong if they're not doing it, too," says Pittman, of Atlanta. "People get
the idea from the media that it's a normal thing and anyone not doing it is
missing out on life's goodies."

A study last fall by the online research firm Insight Express found that 89%
of 1,000 adults ages 25 to 65 believe monogamy is a realistic goal. But 75%
say the lifestyles of young Hollywood stars set a bad example, and just 26%
believe television portrays committed relationships in a positive light.

Pop culture expert Gary Hoppenstand, an American studies professor at
Michigan State University in East Lansing, has analyzed romantic comedies of
the 1950s and '60s and found "the disintegration of the traditional American
household and adultery as a common theme."

He cites movies such as 1955's The Seven Year Itch; 1967's A Guide for the
Married Man, Divorce American Style and The Graduate; and 1969's Bob & Carol
& Ted & Alice as examples of the assault on marriage.

How common are affairs?

It's difficult to gauge whether affairs are indeed more common or just more
openly discussed, especially in light of news stories about celebrities and
public figures that make it appear cheating is on the rise. Research on
infidelity is largely based on surveys in which people self-report, so they
may or may not tell the truth and people may not all agree on definitions,
such as whether to count a one-night stand as an affair or whether oral sex
is really sex.

The most recent large-scale data are from the 1998 General Social Survey,
conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of
Chicago. It found that of 2,169 people who had been married at some point,
17.9% reported sexual infidelity.

Some researchers say there's a 50-50 chance today that one partner will have
an affair during a marriage; that includes non-physical relationships.

But Snyder adds that there is a risk in overestimating the prevalence or
acceptability of affairs.

"It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy the more we imply these are
commonplace and everybody is doing it," he says.

"The big thing that made marriages vulnerable in the past was that we
expected so little, and today the big problem is we expect so much," says
Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the non-profit Council on
Contemporary Families, a group for researchers and clinicians.

Those expectations focus on the spouse as best friend or soul mate, which
adds to the pressure on spouses and makes marriages more vulnerable, experts
say.

"We expect one person to give us what an entire community used to ‹ family
life and stability and economic support and be a trusted confidant and
passionate lover and experience adventure with the same person," says Esther
Perel, a couples and family therapist in New York City.

Marriage takes energy

Thomas Bradbury of the Relationship Institute at the University of
California-Los Angeles says today's economy further intensifies the problem.

"Now we have two people who are struggling mightily under often difficult
circumstances to keep their marriages afloat," he says. "Even if the
internal dynamics of the marriage haven't changed that much, if suddenly
people are less able to generate the energy that it takes, those
relationships are going to struggle."

Relationships that involve emotional sharing, whether in person or online,
but that exclude your spouse can be dangerous territory, says Pittman, who
has been married 48 years. He says getting close to someone else to fill an
unmet need for intimacy "pulls you out of your marriage further and
further."

Such outside emotional connections have been called "emotional affairs"‹ and
growing numbers of married people are in such relationships, says Ronald
Potter-Efron, a clinical psychotherapist in Eau Claire, Wis. He and his wife
have co-authored a book about the phenomenon, called The Emotional Affair,
to be published in January.

Many people involved in such relationships say their spouses are
irrationally jealous, Potter-Efron says, but the spouse says "it just
doesn't feel right."

Natalie James-Tapley, 37, of Miami knows the feeling. She says she and her
former husband have been divorced four years, after a series of separations.
She believes he was emotionally involved with a co-worker.

"If they're now turning to someone else for that emotional support, then it
is a form of cheating," she says.

Retired firefighter Pete Wright, 53, of Greenville, S.C., believes
"deceiving your spouse in any way is asking for problems, even if no sex is
involved."

Wright, who's been married 25 years, has seen what happens if the virtual
becomes real: A friend's wife had an online relationship that led to
divorce, he says.

"I'm sure it started out as friendly conversation, but eventually it evolved
into something that doomed their marriage."

Cyber-affairs may appear safe and manageable, but people may get more
involved than they planned, researchers say.

"They are reaching out for contact or connection of some kind. They're not
necessarily looking for sexual connection," says Peggy Vaughan of San Diego,
author of Preventing Affairs.

"The big debate today is how real is the virtual."

Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of
Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and a leader in the field of happiness research,
says people are more in search of thrills today and may think they're
unhappy when things are just OK.

Happiness is misunderstood

"People misunderstand happiness now more and more," says Diener, co-author
of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, out in
September.

"We used to think happiness was a kind of contentment and life satisfaction.
Now we've come to define it as a really high-arousal kind of excitement.
'How are you?' 'Great! Super!' ‹ these words are very extreme, but they're
the normal answer now."

The need for extreme stimulation may be one reason online pornography is
becoming more an issue in marriage, some say.

Bill Maier, a clinical psychologist at Focus on the Family, a Colorado
Springs organization devoted to Christian family values, says calls about
pornography to the group's counseling center have doubled in the past five
years as the Internet has made sexually explicit images more easily
accessible.

Two 1988 studies about the effect of prolonged consumption of pornography
found that for both men and women, porn fueled unrealistic expectations
about what sex should be and what their partners should be like, and made
them less satisfied overall. Those studies appeared in the Journal of Family
Issues and the Journal of Applied Social Psychology well before the Internet
was widely used.

Michael Leahy of Herndon, Va., says his work in the early days of the tech
industry made it easy to access pornography. Leahy details how he became
addicted to porn, which he says led to his divorce, in the book Porn Nation.

When he felt tension or stress, "pornography was always there as a
mood-altering drug. And it was something I never shared with my wife. She
had no idea I was doing that," says Leahy, 50.

Although some experts claim they can "affair-proof" marriages, Snyder,
co-author of the 2007 book Getting Past the Affair, says one fact cannot be
ignored:

"Marriage, on the excitement dimension, cannot compete with an affair.
Couples need to come to grips with the reality that the passion and
excitement of romance and courtship and the honeymoon is not going to last."

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-'HAPPY ENOUGH' COUPLES FALL PREY TO INFIDELITY, TOO

'Happy enough' couples fall prey to infidelity, too
By Sharon Jayson
USA TODAY
June 30, 2008

Relationship researchers are finding evidence that may be unsettling to many
married couples: Sexual affairs aren't limited to those in unhappy unions.

Among findings:

€Couples who report "pretty happy" marriages are twice as likely to have had
an affair as those who have "very happy" marriages, says a study in May's
Journal of Marriage and Family. Those who report "not too happy" marriages
are three times more likely than the "very happy" to report an affair, says
David Atkins, associate professor of psychology at Fuller Theological
Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

CHEATERS: What counts as infidelity today?

€Couples who said that either they or their spouse had an affair reported no
signs of unhappiness, such as hostility, and had more positive than negative
interactions, according to a study published in the June issue of the
journal Family Process by Beth Allen, assistant professor of psychology at
the University of Colorado-Denver.

€Only a quarter of men in a third study, also by Allen and reported this
year in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, said they had "lots of marital
problems" before an affair.

So, how happy is happy enough to ward off extramarital temptation? If
someone who reports being happy still cheats, is it boredom or something
deeper?

Pursuit of 'ultra-happiness'

Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of
Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, says people today pursue what he calls
"ultra-happiness," so they expect love to always be romantic and full of
thrills.

Mira Kirshenbaum of Boston, author of a new book called When Good People
Have Affairs, says perceived boredom in a marriage may well result in a
spouse who strays.

"They think their marriage is OK because they don't fight a lot, but they
are distant and bored," she says. "Sex is routine. Conversation about
meaningful things is like pulling teeth."

The space between

But Douglas Snyder, a psychologist at Texas A&M University-College Station,
isn't convinced that boredom is to blame. He says it's a lack of closeness
and passion. "People can become distant in their marriage and interpret that
as boredom, but I think it's a misnomer," he says.

Atkins' research analyzed 1,439 responses from the 1998 General Social
Survey of adults who had ever been married. He used the categories "not very
happy," "pretty happy" and "very happy" to try to measure the likelihood of
infidelity.

Although the general thinking has been that unfaithful spouses are less
happy in their marriage and experience marital problems before the affair,
the research by Allen found that couples with positive relationships aren't
immune from adultery.

In her study in the June issue of the journal Family Process, Allen examined
72 heterosexual couples before marriage and followed them for five years to
see who might have an affair. Of that group, 48 couples reported no affairs,
while women were unfaithful in 11 marriages and men were unfaithful in 13.
The study found that couples who later experienced infidelity weren't
hostile and showed "more positive than negative communication."

Also, the study she did of 115 married or formerly married couples,
published this year in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, found that when
asked whether they had "lots of marital problems" before the affair, 48% of
women said they had, and just 25% of men said so.

"What's striking for men is that a lot of them were saying they weren't
having marital problems" before an affair, Allen says.

Though the experts say it's natural to sometimes be physically attracted to
someone else besides your spouse, they say the danger comes with acting on
those feelings.

"Partners have to work hard at protecting their marriage from boredom by
being vigilant and attending to the marriage on a daily basis," says Snyder,
who celebrated his 34th wedding anniversary last month.

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12th Annual Smart Marriages® Conference, Hilton San Francisco Hotel,
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Pre-Conference Training Institutes June 30-July 2
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DOWNLOAD a conference brochure and register at:
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