Couples Play / Addicts Can Heal /Bridal Fair - 7/16/08

[Smartmarriages]

- MARRIED COUPLES WHO PLAY TOGETHER STAY TOGETHER
- AMAZING SIDEBAR to "play together" article
- PORN ADDICTS CAN HEAL
- TEXAS BRIDAL FAIR

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- MARRIED COUPLES WHO PLAY TOGETHER STAY TOGETHER
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
July 16, 2008 

Most couples know their marriages are happier when they make time to have
fun. But often it's the fun that's first to fall by the wayside as demands
pile up, especially in a trying economy when couples often work long hours
or hold down more than one job.

Now research from the University of Denver supports the idea that finding
moments to be together free of financial, family or other stresses ‹ just to
have fun together ‹ is not an indulgence.

"The more you invest in fun and friendship and being there for your partner,
the happier the relationship will get over time," says Howard Markman, a
psychologist who co-directs the university's Center for Marital and Family
Studies.

"The correlation between fun and marital happiness is high, and
significant."

For men, the connection is even more important, the researchers say. They
found that men are more likely than women to call their spouse their best
friend.

Markman and co-director Scott Stanley in 1996 began a long-term study of 306
Denver-area couples. The yet-unpublished study is based on a fun and
friendship scale the pair developed, with statements such as "We regularly
have great conversations where we just talk as good friends," and "My
partner really listens to me when I have something important to say." They
analyzed questionnaires from a subset of the sample ‹ 197 couples in their
second year of marriage.

The research adds to findings published in 2000 in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology by psychologist Arthur Aron of State
University of New York-Stony Brook and colleagues. They showed that sharing
in new and exciting activities is consistently associated with better
relationships.

Markman, who conducts couples retreats, says individual leisure activities,
such as watching TV or using the Internet, don't build those positive
connections.

Other relationship experts agree. "The thing we're working for is to have
fun and relaxation and enjoyment together, and then we're contaminating it,"
says Les Parrott, a psychology professor at Seattle Pacific University and
co-author of relationship books.

One of the reasons couples have trouble is that they have different takes on
fun and bonding, Parrott says. "Intimacy and friendship for a man is built
on shared activity, but for women, shared activity is a backdrop for a great
conversation. What she wants on date night is a time of intimacy and
friendship. He's disappointed because she'll never go to a game or golfing,
and it's during shared activities that his spirit is most likely to open
up."

Gender differences also showed up in another study by the Denver
researchers. They asked a random phone sample of 908 people how long it had
been since they had been on a date with their spouse; women, on average,
said it had been twice as long as men. (In couples married 11 to 19 years,
women said 17.8 weeks, and men said nine.)

"Males and females have different definitions of what a date is," Markman
says. "Females' definition is much more planned in advance and the husband
puts more effort into it. For a guy, grabbing coffee ‹ that's a date."

Marital interaction is also declining, say researchers in the 2007 book
Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing. Pennsylvania State
University sociologist Paul Amato and colleagues analyzed national surveys
of 2,034 married couples in 1980 and a similar sample of 2,100 in 2000.
Those who reported "almost always" engaging in certain leisure activities
with their spouses dropped.

Markman took a less scientific approach in a solo study he began in the
early 1990s of cities with major league baseball teams; he found those
cities had a 28% lower divorce rate than cities that didn't have teams but
had expressed interest in one. Markman, a baseball fan, doesn't claim that
watching baseball is responsible for saving marriages, but he does say it
offers couples some fun.

Apparently, it's something many couples already know. Scarborough Sports
Marketing of New York, which collects consumer information about
professional sports, found that more than 3.9 million married women attended
a major-league game from August 2006 through September 2007, compared with
2.5 million for professional basketball, football and hockey combined.

San Diegans Georgi Bohrod Gordon, 63, and her husband, Rich Gordon, 62, are
avid baseball fans who even go to spring training. She says baseball talk
sparks their conversation, even during the rough spots.

"Sometimes when things are getting a little tense ‹ because they can ‹ we
can say things like, 'How 'bout them Padres?' and we can go back into a very
comfortable world of conversation, which then might lead to less tension,
and it opens up the doors to a lot of other conversations," she says.

Thomas Bradbury, who co-directs the Marriage and Family Development
Laboratory and Relationship Institute at the University of California-Los
Angeles, believes having fun together can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
for couples: "People in happy relationships generate these activities, and
as they generate these activities, it keeps their relationship strong and
healthy and fresh."

-AMAZING SIDEBAR to "play together" article
> LESS TIME TOGETHER
> 
> The percentage of people who say they "almost always" share activities with
> their spouses has declined over 20 years.
> 
> Visit friends
> 1980: 53%
> 2000: 34%
> 
> Go out for leisure activities
> 1980: 62%
> 2000: 44%
> 
> Eat main meal together
> 1980: 78%
> 2000: 66%
> 
> Source: Alone Together: How Marriage in America is Changing, 2007, by Paul
> Amato and colleagues


For the full article with photos and reader poll:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-15-fun-in-marriage_N.htm

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- PORN ADDICTS CAN HEAL
The Washington Times
July 22, 2008
Cheryl Wetzstein

The public divorce of former supermodel Christie Brinkley and her handsome
architect husband Peter Cook offers a teachable moment.

Mr. Cook, according to court testimony this month, had a $3,600-a-month
online pornography habit and paid a teenage sex partner $300,000 in hush
money.

So many questions come to mind. Why would a wealthy husband and father risk
everything for a fling with a teenager? How does one spend the equivalent of
a middle-class income on online pornography? And why is Peter Cook doing any
of these things when he's married to one of the world's most desirable
women?

The answer: "It's total insanity. But that's what addiction is - total
insanity," says psychologist Douglas Weiss, who leads the Heart to Heart
Counseling Center for sex addicts in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"Insanity is when you have the option of having sex with someone who cares
about you, and you choose to have self-sex behavior with pornography, with
[images of] someone you don't know and don't connect to," says Mr. Weiss.
"You don't have to be rich, famous or beautiful to have this problem."

"What surprises me" is that Americans are still surprised to see sex
addiction ruining lives, says Michael Leahy, author of "Porn Nation," a book
about sex addiction.

"We just don't realize that we live in an increasingly pornographic culture,
a sex-saturated society where some people get really fixated on it," said
Mr. Leahy. "You can be married to a Christie Brinkley - or a Halle Berry -
and it really doesn't matter because it's never about your spouse. It's
about your pathological relationship with pornography or other [sexually
explicit] material. Everything else becomes irrelevant."

Both Mr. Weiss and Mr. Leahy speak from personal experience.

Mr. Weiss has been "sober" for more than 20 years, which means he has not
looked at pornography, masturbated or had extramarital sex.

Mr. Leahy is in his 10th year of recovery. His addictions to sex and
pornography destroyed his 15-year marriage "to a very beautiful woman," cost
him jobs and separated him from his two young sons.

Had Miss Brinkley called him for help with her husband, "the first thing I
would have said is, 'This isn't about you,'" said Mr. Weiss. "It isn't about
your beauty. It isn't about your sex. This isn't about how clean the house
is. It's about his sickness" and something that has probably been going on
in his life since he was 14 years old.

"He can heal; he can get better. But it's going to take work," says Mr.
Weiss, who has written numerous books on the subject and counseled many
high-profile people, including politicians.

Pornography addiction "isn't something that you have to stay stuck with," he
says. "Your marriage doesn't have to be destroyed; your kids don't have to
have big holes in their souls. And you can live a congruent life."

The biggest step is deciding you want to get well, says Mr. Leahy. Most guys
don't want to hear "I can't masturbate to porn" anymore; instead, they get
defensive and hide their behavior even more.

"But you cannot recover from this kind of stuff on your own. It's way too
powerful," adds Mr. Leahy, who remarried in December. The way out, he says,
includes detoxification, accountability to others, counseling, support
groups and time.

c Cheryl Wetzstein's column On the Family appears Tuesdays and Sundays. She
can be reached at cwetzstein at washingtontimes.com.
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- TEXAS BRIDAL FAIR

Read to the end of this article "the cheapest booth in the room...."
There are many articles and braodcasts about Marriage Education classes
being offered across the state as Texas gears up for the marriage license
fee changes that go into effect Sept 1.  Couples that take an 8-hr
skills-based Marriage Education class get their license for free! I'm
convinced that the media coverage alone will help change things! - diane

July 20, 2008
Houston and Texas News
BRIDAL EXTRAVAGANZA
Tying the knot with pizazz
Show features eye-catching items from fancy flip-flops to portable toilets

By JENNIFER LATSON

>From a 50-inch plasma screen playing the video game Guitar Hero to the
Ritz-Carlton of portable restrooms, brides-to-be discovered the treasures
this weekend that they never knew they needed to make their special days a
success.

Tucked in among the seven-tiered wedding cakes, glittering tiaras and the
other offerings of the 700 booths at Houston's Bridal Extravaganza Show at
the George R. Brown Convention Center were flourishes a bride might have
overlooked.

Take Cathie Bortz's booth, offering customized flip-flops, the straps
wrapped in ribbon and studded with rhinestone charms.

For about $40 a pair, a bridal party can get a matching set.

"You pick your color, your ribbon, your buckle," said Bortz, whose company
is named Fancy Flops.

A wedding might stay on track without coordinated flip-flops, but without
bathroom facilities, there's going to be trouble.

So for those planning outdoor weddings who don't want to suffer the
indignity of brightly-colored plastic port-a-potties, Frank Ballback offers
a higher caliber of portable toilet.

Recently engaged Katie McCullough researched the options for an April
wedding with an outdoor reception at her mother's rural home.

"I don't want my septic system overwhelmed," said her mother, Cindy
McCullough.

Ballback made his pitch.

"Depending on the size of your wedding party, you could get the two-stall
trailer, or you could go with the presidential," he said. "That's the next
step up."

The three-stall deluxe model, painted an unobtrusive white, with air
conditioning, hot water, marble counters and a stereo system, rents for
$1,450 a day.

"This is more the Ritz," Ballback explained.

The two-stall version has fewer frills and rents for $795.

"That's more like a Holiday Inn," he said.

Or wedding planners can rent a flushable portable toilet, which eliminates
the smell of traditional port-a-potties, for $285 a day.

The extra amenities add up fast.

Hector Hernandez, 24, spent Sunday afternoon coming to terms with the
$15,000 to $20,000 price tag of his upcoming wedding to 23-year-old Krystal
Castillo.

The couple wore bride-and-groom shirts and ballcaps Castillo's mother picked
up at the expo the day before.

"I didn't know you could do all this," Castillo said. "You can have your
wedding on a yacht! I'm showing him all the different things."

"And how much I'm going to spend," Hernandez said.

Castillo hasn't decided yet between a Bonnie and Clyde-themed wedding or a
tropical motif. They will be married in the Houston area either next fall or
the following spring.

The cheapest booth in the room, hosted by the Greater Houston Healthy
Marriage Coalition, offered free marriage compatibility tests and an
enrollment list for an eight-hour "premarital education" course. Couples who
take the free course will not have to pay the $60 fee for a marriage license
in Texas.

"They're paid for by your federal and state government," said Tim Louis of
Family Services of Greater Houston.

"We're recognizing that the community does better with stable relationships
and stable families."

The eight-hour course offers lessons in effective communication, conflict
resolution, financial planning and parenting.


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