Vera Mace / Only the Lonely/ Marriage vs Cohabitation /Marketing to Men - 7/25/08

[Smartmarriages]

- OBITUARY FOR VERA MACE, CO-FOUNDER OF ACME
- ONLY THE LONELY 
- HARDER TO WALK AWAY AFTER 200 ATTEND WEDDING
- POLL FINDS GREAT FAITH IN MARRIAGE
- FREE WEBCLASS: HOW TO MARKET MARRIAGE EDUCATION TO MEN
- FAMILY ISSUES IN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

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- OBITUARY FOR VERA MACE, CO-FOUNDER OF ACME
 
Vera Chapman Mace died on July 22, 2008 at the age of 106 in Burlington, VT.
She was born on January 24, 1902 in Yorkshire, England.

After excelling in school, she persuaded her parents to let her go to a
teaching college ­ an unusual step for women at that time.  Once graduated,
she taught children for a few years in a slum area in Yorkshire.  At that
point she was offered a job in London as Secretary (Director) of the Girls
League, a national young women¹s organization sponsored by the Methodist
Church.  It was through this work that Vera met a young Scottish Methodist
minister, David Mace.

They were married on July 26, 1933.  David continued his church work in
several parishes around Gloucester and then in London while Vera had two
daughters, Sheila in 1935 and Fiona in 1938.

In 1940 as war moved across Europe, David and Vera faced the agonizing
decision of getting their children out of harms way.  Based on an offer from
Whitney & Janet Trousdale (he a friend of David¹s from Cambridge University
days), they decided that Vera would take the children to the U.S.  Seasick
all the way across, they traveled to New York City on one of the last ships
available for non-military personnel before German U-Boat bombings stopped
that method of transport.

Vera took the children to Olean, NY, where Whitney Trousdale was a
Presbyterian Minister and, once they were settled, she decided to go to Drew
University in NJ to work on a Masters degree in Religion. Fearful that
David, who was serving as an Air Raid Warden, as well as a minister, in
London would not survive the war, Vera felt that she must prepare herself to
support the family. After completing the degree and making frequent visits
to the children who she felt were doing very well, Vera returned to England
to be with David. 

Following the war and reunited with the children, Vera and David were active
in starting the National Marriage Guidance Council in England and
introducing marriage counseling to all parts of that post war country. This
launched a new and eventually international career for the Maces in trying
to strengthen marriages. Immigrating as a family to Madison, NJ in 1949,
where David began teaching sociology and marriage at Drew University, the
couple also soon became joint Executive Directors of the then American
Association of Marriage Counselors (now AAMFT).  Soon after, they began
traveling extensively around the world for various organizations, including
the UN Institute for the Family, providing international training seminars
on five continents.

The Maces wrote more than 30 books. In 1973, as part of a celebration of 50
years of marriage, Vera and David founded the Association for Couples in
Marriage Enrichment (ACME) through which strong marriages have been promoted
in the U.S. and beyond.

In addition the Maces were involved in starting Highland Farms Retirement
Center in Black Mountain, NC where they subsequently lived, David until his
death in 1990 and Vera until she moved from its nursing home to Burlington,
VT in 2003 so that she could be closer to family. It was in Vermont that she
celebrated her 106th birthday in January, 2008.

Vera is survived by two daughters, 5 grandchildren, and eight great
grandchildren.  In appreciation for the loving care they provided Vera for
her final four and a half years, Memorial Donations can be made to the LNA
Education Fund, Birchwood Terrace Healthcare, 43 Starr Farm Road,
Burlington, VT, 05401.
 
####################
- ONLY THE LONELY 

Daily Mail
July 23, 2008
Steve Doughty

(Old age is going to be taxing enough without this extra burden....another
reason to increase our efforts to plug the hole in the family breakdown
dike. - diane)

> . . .divorce reforms at the end of the 1960s ­ trebling the number of divorces
> ­ are having a destructive impact on those now reaching old age. . .

> The number of divorces tripled in the early 1970s after the liberal reforms of
> 1969 made 'quickie' decrees available for the first time.
> 
> Men who divorced in the early 1970s while in their mid-thirties will now be 70
> years old and MANY HAVE LOST ALL contact with their children.
 

Divorce and separation are blighting the lives of millions of older people,
a Labour think-tank said yesterday.

It found that isolation among the elderly has been made worse by increasing
numbers of couples breaking up.

A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research said that the rising
number of the aged and the tendency of women to outlive their husbands is
also contributing to depression and unhappiness.

The findings echo studies carried out earlier this year which discovered
divorce reforms at the end of the 1960s ­ trebling the number of divorces ­
are having a destructive impact on those now reaching old age.

IPPR author Jessica Allen said that 19 per cent of divorced or separated
women and 17 per cent of men had increased mental health problems in at
least the short term after a relationship breakdown.

She added that a 'significant contributing factor to low well-being in older
people is the number of older people living alone'.

The report said that 2.4million people over 65 ­ more than one in five
pensioners ­ are estimated to suffer from depression.

Two per cent of pensioners who live with someone else say they are often
lonely, compared with 17 per cent of those who live alone.

The IPPR findings follow a survey by ICM Research for Zurich Community
Trust, published in June, which suggested half a million older men live
alone with no social contact, and one in five people with an elderly father
is not in contact with him.

Yesterday's report said the growing numbers of women over 75 are nearly
twice as likely to live alone as men because of their longer life
expectancy.

The number of divorces tripled in the early 1970s after the liberal reforms
of 1969 made 'quickie' decrees available for the first time.

Men who divorced in the early 1970s while in their mid-thirties will now be
70 years old and many have lost all contact with children.

Divorced women of the same age may live alone but are more likely to be in
contact with their children.

While divorce rates remain high ­ in 2006 there were nearly 133,000 ­ the
effects of the growth of cohabitation and rapid family break-up from the
1980s are now starting to affect the lives of the elderly.

The IPPR report said that men who have never married have an 8 per cent
chance of mental health problems, while women have a 4 per cent chance of
depression or other difficulties as they age.

Among the married, 7 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women are likely to
report mental health problems.

The IPPR said seeing grandchildren frequently protected older people from
mental ill-health.

Nearly six out of ten grandparents say they are a friend or confidant of
their grandchildren.

The report also called for more community support for the isolated.

Lizzie McLennan of Help the Aged said: 'It is incredibly important that
local communities have services for older people that go beyond social
care.'

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- HARDER TO WALK AWAY AFTER 200 ATTEND WEDDING

(There are literally several dozen marriage/wedding articles a day across
the country.  This is one worth sharing.  She sounds like a member of our
coalition....how'd she get so smart!  - diane)

Liz Soares 
Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel
07/24/2008

The bride was glowing, the flowers were exquisite and the dancing went on
for hours.

This was my only nuptial this year. Now that I am between those periods of
life when friends and relatives marry and when their children tie the knot,
my wedding invitations are rare. Too bad. I love the drama, beauty and
excitement of the ceremony and reception.

I like to see people get hitched.

Marriage makes sense to me. I have a romantic side, but I also see marriage
as a practical lifestyle. It's an efficient economic unit.

When my husband wrote mini-biographies of his ancient Quebecois ancestors,
he found that few stayed single for long. They married young and when their
spouses croaked of virulent, pestilent fevers they promptly found somebody
new. They had to -- one half of the couple had to literally tend the home
fires, the other had to just as literally bring home the bacon.

Times have not really changed. We just like to think they have. It still
takes two people to create healthy, successful households. Most women who
try to raise children on their own condemn themselves to lives of struggle
and poverty. Married people, both men and women, are healthier than their
single counterparts and live longer, too. Children of intact families have
fewer problems across the board.

The romantic in me says that these benefits stem from happy, committed
relationships, not the marriage contract. Or maybe that's my
inner-child-of-the-1970s talking. Anyway, it's not what I see in the real
world.

Divorce is epidemic in our country, but shacking up provides even less
stability. Cohabitation in the short-term is a good way for serious couples
to do a trial run for marriage. But it can quickly become an economic
disaster for women, especially if they bear children out of wedlock.

For the connubial economic engine to work, a couple has to meld finances and
work together for the common good. This takes trust, of course, but that is
the foundation for a long-lived marriage.

So is family involvement. Taking vows before 200 people lends a certain
weight to a relationship. Disgruntled cohabitators can pack their bags in
the middle of the night and be gone without a trace. Yes, I know that every
year a bunch of married people do the same thing. But it's not the same
thing. The law has its say -- and so do those 200 people.

Everyone who attends a wedding has a stake in the relationship. They are
witnessing the union and bestowing their best wishes. Friends and relations
formally meet the new guy or gal as well as "the other side." They will be
ready to embrace these newcomers at future social events. Two circles of
loved ones are joined and a new one created.

My romantic side definitely prefers this to the alternative: going to a
family holiday party and meeting a pregnant stranger who apparently is going
to give birth to a relative's child.

For all my love of weddings, I am not pleased with the trend of the
reception extravaganza. I am tempted to sneer "all cake, no commitment." But
despite the glitzy overlays, the corny wedding traditions remain at the
core. We need them, perhaps to reassure ourselves that if the cake is cut,
the bouquet tossed, the garter removed, this couple will endure.

Some readers may be wondering if I've been dithering on as a way to avoid
making a statement about gay marriage. Well, I am of the live-and-let-live
camp. But if we believe that marriage is an important institution, both
economically and culturally, then we should understand why all people in
committed relationships want access to it.

It was my cousin's daughter who was married last month. The night before the
wedding, I happened to look through some old photos and found one of my
cousin, her sister and me on a 1978 trip to Montreal. I remembered my cousin
telling us on that trip, in very serious tones, "I think I've met the one.
The guy I want to marry."

She did marry him the next year, and in 1980 gave birth to her daughter --
the bride.

My cousin was delighted to be reminded of this story, which she had
forgotten. As I brushed away tears watching the father of the bride and his
daughter dance to "Forever Young," I wondered why I had remembered it.

But only for a moment. I'm just a sucker for weddings.

Liz Soares is a freelance writer and the author of "All for Maine: The Story
of Gov. Percival P. Baxter."

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- POLL FINDS GREAT FAITH IN MARRIAGE

Hi Diane, I was asked to offer insight to a website called, of all things,
Divorce360.com. It didn't sound like a site I wanted to support, but, they
ended up writing a very pro-marriage article that just today ran in the
Miami Herald! Ya' never know!
Scott Haltzman, http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com

Poll finds many have great faith in marriage
Miami Herald
July 24, 2008
By DIVORCE360.COM
Michele Kimball

More than 80 percent of divorced Americans still believe in marriage,
according to results from a GfK Roper poll. Leading mental health experts
said the poll results reflect what they are seeing in their own practices.

"Marriage provides continuity, and it gives you another person to share life
events with," said Dr. Scott Haltzman, a psychiatrist who teaches at Brown
University. "And someone to give your day-to-day struggles meaning."

The GfK Roper poll, commissioned by divorce360.com, analyzed a variety of
marriage and divorce issues. The results showed that both divorced men and
women strongly believed in the institution of marriage. When looked at
separately, women were slightly stronger in their beliefs - 74 percent of
men reported strong positive feelings about marriage, while 86 percent of
women did.

Just 5 percent of the respondents said they no longer believed in marriage.
When their answers were divided and analyzed, the results showed that 7
percent of women no longer believe in the institution, and 3 percent of men
no longer believe. Haltzman said the strong underlying belief in marriage
comes from the feelings of confidence and well-being it can provide.

"People like the feeling of the safety and security that comes along with a
lifetime commitment," Haltzman said.

There are a variety of reasons that people still appreciate marriage, such
as the fact that marriage is encouraged by society, people have a need for
companionship and that people see marriage as a way to solidify that
companionship.

SOCIETAL ENCOURAGEMENT
The reasons people support marriage can be complex, but it seems to begin
from the fact that marriage is a societal norm, said Dennis Lowe, Ph.D., a
licensed psychologist and a marriage and family therapist who founded the
Center for the Family at Pepperdine University. People are encouraged to get
an education, get married and have kids, he said. "It becomes a part of
something that is socially sanctioned, socially encouraged," Lowe said.

Adding to that societal encouragement is the intrinsic desire for attachment
and connection with other people in an intimate way, Lowe said. "One of the
most socially-sanctioned ways to do that is in a marital relationship," he
said.

In fact, marriage is so valued by society that people look at it as a goal
in life. And if it doesn't work the first time, they are willing to try
again, Lowe said.

"Sometimes it's something they dreamed about their whole life," Lowe said.
"After divorce, people may look at the experience as something that failed,
but they don't give up on that goal to be married," Lowe said.

"If it failed, they might think 'Maybe we weren't compatible, but I am not
incompatible with marriage,'" Lowe said.

DESIRE FOR COMPANIONSHIP

Marriage becomes a significant life goal because the desire to be loved is a
basic human need, said Tom Diana, Ph.D., clinical psychologist with Family &
Children's Center in Minnesota. "And marriage has always been a way to
achieve that," Diana said.

No matter the trouble a relationship may bring, Diana said, people are
willing to tolerate the negativity to be a part of a partnership.
"Regardless of the trouble, people miss companionship, they miss having
someone to settle in with, someone to be with at night," Diana said.
That need for companionship is powerfully tied to the basic need for love,
Diana said. "We are social beings, we are social animals, and we need that
companionship," Diana said.

When one finds the person that brings love and companionship, Diana said,
the next step is usually considering marriage.

"Honestly, I don't think people go into a marriage, first or second or
whatever, that rationally. We tend to choose people who are familiar –
familiar as in family. For good and for bad, we make those kinds of choices.
I think we tend to pick people who are somehow completing us – they have
characteristics that we don't see in ourselves," Diana said.

Marriage becomes the answer for the yearning to deepen a love relationship,
and to feel the solidity of commitment. It is a serious public commitment,
rather than just moving in together, Diana said. "It's more that it's us in
the long haul, not just until we don't want to live together," Diana said.

Having a live-in partner is not the same, Haltzman said. The person can
leave any time, so he or she does not have to be committed to caring about
everything that happens in a partner's day, he said. "When you are married,
you carry your partner's baggage and he or she carries yours," Haltzman
said.

As the commitment begins to turn toward beginning a family together, the
connection provided by marriage becomes even more necessary, Haltzman said.
"I would say it is universally recognized that the most ideal way is to
raise children with their biological mothers and fathers, so the decision to
marry is not just about having a life partner. It's about establishing a
life trajectory and putting it on the best track possible," Haltzman said.

Lowe said that though more and more people are choosing to live together
without marriage, there is still some sense that the way to further the
commitment is to enter into a marital relationship. He said that younger
people who have grown up in a culture in which divorce is prevalent are not
being scared away from the commitment marriage provides. Instead, they are
looking at the failed relationships around them and believing that theirs
will work out differently, he said.

MAKE IT WORK - WITH SOMEONE ELSE

Even those who have been divorced tend to believe that the match was not
right, but marriage will work again. Haltzman said that the desire for
marriage was strong enough to try it the first time, so it is likely the
desire will remain.

"Did their experience prior to the divorce leave them feeling as if marriage
as an institution should be avoided, or do they think they married the wrong
person?" Haltzman asked. "Generally, it's the former."[From Scott: This is a
misquote!]

He said people generally blame the failed marriage on reasons other than the
institution itself: they married someone with whom they were incompatible,
or they were too young. "The fact of the matter is, it probably wasn't that
they married the wrong person," Haltzman said. "They probably didn't
understand all that went into being married."

One failed marriage does not mean that marriage will never be a success,
Haltzman said. It means that the person did not have the skills to make
marriage work at the time, he said. "Those skills are learnable, trainable,
but they are distinctly unromantic," Haltzman said.

The skills needed, he said, are communication skills, listening skills and
understanding one's expectations in marriage, he said. "The people who are
really happy in marriage, are the ones who put their partner's needs first,"
Haltzman said. "They do it consistently, they do it lovingly, and not with
the concern that the partner will reciprocate."

Lowe said that even if one fails at marriage, the underlying intrinsic needs
remain, which means that marriage may again be on the horizon. "That desire
for an intimate connection to another person is something that sustains
itself even if we have had failed relationships in the past," Lowe said.

Diana said that when he speaks with his patients, he tells them that it is
highly likely that they will remarry. Even if at the moment they see it as
an impossibility, eventually it is likely, he said. He said he tells them to
take care in their choices, and to complete themselves emotionally rather
than waiting for someone else to do it.

He said that the idea of trying marriage again after divorce brings to mind
the story of author Samuel Johnson who, after hearing a man had remarried
after the death of his wife, said "It's triumph of hope over experience."

"That always stuck with me. I see that a lot," Diana said. "We are always
hopeful that we are going to better ourselves. That we are going to learn
from our mistakes."


ABOUT THE POLL
More than 1,500 people responded to the telephone poll in September. The
margin of error for the plus or minus 2.6 percent.

© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company.


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- FREE WEBCLASS: HOW TO MARKET MARRIAGE EDUCATION TO MEN

The Husbands Matter coalition will offer a complimentary one hour
telewebclass entitled: How to Market Marriage Education to Men
Monday, August 4at 8:30 pm EDT.
Presenters: Scott Haltzman, Neil Chethik and John Curtis.

This class is open to anyone from the Smart Marriage community who calls or
logs on.

This is the link directly to the telewebclass site...
http://www.instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=3243900


To Participate Live by Phone the number to call (on Aug 4th) is:
218-486-3696   ID #: 3100008#

If you have questions PRIOR TO the presentation: email John Curtis at
jcurtis[at]iodinc.com or call 1.828.246.0459

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- FAMILY ISSUES IN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

NCPA Distinguished Fellow Terry Neese is scheduled to appear on the Fox
News Channel's American Newsroom program on Monday, July 28, 2008  at 8:30
a.m. CDT.  She'll discuss how the NCPA Family Policy Center's issues
should be addressed in the presidential campaign and by Congress.  NCPA
is a service mark of the National Center for Policy Analysis. We are an
independent public policy institute and are not affiliated with any other
organization, trade association or corporation.  The NCPA's mission is to
seek innovative private-sector solutions to public policy problems. By using
innovative and unique approaches to these problems, the NCPA encourages
individual rights, free enterprise and self-government.
 https://secure.ncpa.org/support/

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