Laugh Your Way to Lower Blood Pressure/ Stand by Spouse/ Tips/ Adultery #1 - 3/21/08

Fri Mar 21 14:58:29 EDT 2008

- MARK GUNGOR'S LAUGH YOUR WAY: SPECIAL MARCH 25 DEAL
- STUDY: MARRIAGE MAY LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE
- WHY STAY WITH A CHEATING SPOUSE?
- IS SIN DEAD?

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- MARK GUNGOR'S LAUGH YOUR WAY: SPECIAL DEAL IF YOU ORDER BY MARCH 25TH

Buy Mark Gungor's new book *Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage* and take
advantage of a special offer for Smart Marriage subscribers:
Order online at http://www.laughyourway.com/ or by calling 866-525-2844
BEFORE MARCH 25th and get the book for only $20 plus receive a FREE copy of
Mark's DVD, *A Tale of Two Brains*.

Mark's approach will definitely help with the following - lowering your
marital blood pressure!

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- STUDY: MARRIAGE MAY LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE

(This research is all the more reason to help couples learn how to get
married and have HAPPY SATISFYING marriages. - diane)

20 March 2008
DAILY HERALD   
Brittani Lusk

A good friend might be a better listener or manicure buddy, but if you're
looking to lower your blood pressure, it might help to get a fiance and head
to the altar.

According to a new study released by a Brigham Young University researcher,
those who are happily married have lower blood pressure than singles -- even
those with supportive social networks. But there is no evidence the jumps
come all at once, and those who were unhappily married had blood pressure
higher than singles.

"I think it could be safely argued that the type of social support within a
marital relationship would be just as important if not more important than
support from social [relationships]," said BYU physiology professor Julianne
Holt-Lunstad, who wrote the study.

She found that people in happy marriages surveyed for 24 hours had blood
pressure four points lower than single adults who also were surveyed. The
findings will be published in today's issue of the Annals of Behavioral
Medicine.

The research helps to further explain why married adults are healthier and
live longer. Holt-Lunstad said there could be something in the marriage
relationship that can't be gleaned from mere friendship. Her research also
shows that happily married people could have a decreased risk of
cardiovascular disease.

"With the spousal relationship there's a greater level of commitment and
intimacy -- at least a greater expectation of commitment and intimacy than
in many other relationships," Holt-Lunstad said.

In addition to the general, lower blood pressure of those happily married,
Holt-Lunstad said she and her co-researchers also found that married adults
had blood pressure that dipped more than that of single adults when they
slept. Those whose blood pressure stays high at night are at a greater risk
for heart disease.

Holt-Lunstad said that as people age, their blood pressure tends to
increase. Perhaps being married slows the climb due to the supportive
marital relationship, she said.

BYU senior Katie NeVille isn't married and is fine with it. She said being
married soon would be nice, but she isn't worried: She has friends.

"I live with great roommates," Neville said. "We can just go have fun
together. We are just fine hanging out."

Neville did say that letting go of the social life would be one less stress
to deal with if she were married.

"Of course marriage is going to come with problems," Neville said. "It will
be nice just to have that stability."

BYU senior Randal Serr has been married for about three months. He said his
life is easier because he doesn't have to carve out time to see his wife
because they live together.

"You don't have to find the time to be with your significant other," Serr
said.

It also helps that Serr doesn't get lonely anymore.

"The best part about marriage is the companionship," Serr said.

Holt-Lunstad acknowledged the pressures some BYU students feel to get
married and said her samples came from the community, not from campus.

---------------- 
AP VERSION:
 Good marriage equals good blood pressure

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
Mar 20, 2008 

A happy marriage is good for your blood pressure, but a stressed one can be
worse than being single, a preliminary study suggests.

That second finding is a surprise because prior studies have shown that
married people tend to be healthier than singles, said researcher Julianne
Holt-Lunstad.

It would take further study to sort out what the results mean for long-term
health, said Holt-Lunstad, an assistant psychology professor at Brigham
Young University. Her study was reported online Thursday by the Annals of
Behavioral Medicine.

The study involved 204 married people and 99 single adults. Most were white,
and it's not clear whether the same results would apply to other ethnic
groups, Holt-Lunstad said.

Study volunteers wore devices that recorded their blood pressure at random
times over 24 hours. Married participants also filled out questionnaires
about their marriage.

Analysis found that the more marital satisfaction and adjustment spouses
reported, the lower their average blood pressure was over the 24 hours and
during the daytime.

But spouses who scored low in marital satisfaction had higher average blood
pressure than single people did. During the daytime, their average was about
five points higher, entering a range that's considered a warning sign. (That
result is for the top number in a blood pressure reading).

"I think this (study) is worth some attention," said Karen Matthews, a
professor of psychiatry, psychology and epidemiology at the University of
Pittsburgh. She studies heart disease and high blood pressure but didn't
participate in the new work.

Few studies of the risk for high blood pressure have looked at marital
quality rather than just marital status, she said.

It makes sense that marital quality is more important than just being
married when it comes to affecting blood pressure, said Dr. Brian Baker, an
associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

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- WHY STAY WITH A CHEATING SPOUSE?

Helpful perspective plus TIPS at the end from expert Peggy Vaughan.  Clip
them and keep them handy in your work with couples. - diane

Why stay with a cheating spouse?
By Jessica Yadegaran
Contra Costa Times
03/19/2008

Last week, the highly successful wife of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer stood
by his side "silent, eyes downcast" as he confessed his involvement in a
sex scandal and resigned from office. Since then, Silda Spitzer, a
Harvard-educated former Wall Street attorney, has been under scrutiny. Why
did she support the two-timer?

"If my husband cheated on me, I'd tell him to carry on (without me)," says
Debbie Hargrave, who lives in Concord and has been married for four years.
Her mother-in-law went through it and got a divorce. But Hargrave felt for
Silda Spitzer. "She had to stand by him," she says. "It's his career. It's
her bread."

The Spitzers are the latest in a chain of publicized indiscretions where
the wife not only stays put, but stands by her man: from Hillary Clinton to
Wendy Vitter and Kathy Lee Gifford. Public or not, what motivates someone
to stay after his or her spouse has an affair?

In her 25 years of research and consulting on extramarital affairs,
DearPeggy.com's Peggy Vaughan says as much as 70 percent of people stay in
the marriage after infidelity. "Most people think all infidelity ends in
divorce, but frequently they (the couple) just keep it quiet," she says.

The common yet judgmental question "Why did she stay?" implies that she
shouldn't, Vaughan says. "It's an extra burden for all the women who stay
to have to defend themselves to their family and friends. When somebody
tells you 'If it were me, I'd "...' you can ignore the rest of the sentence
because they aren't you."

She cautions couples from seeking divorce right away. "The people who get
out right away second-guess themselves the rest of their lives," says
Vaughan, founder of the Beyond Affairs Network and the author of eight
books, including "The Monogamy Myth."

Vaughan and other experts say the reasons people stay say a lot about
gender differences, and how we approach relationships.

 From a young age, women are taught to value relationships, says Ray
Campton, an ordained minister and Berkeley marriage and family therapist.
Men, he says, are trained to be lone wolves. "A woman may say, 'My pride
and principle demand that I leave you, but I'm going to this divine place
and I'm going to forgive you, and stay,'" Campton says.

That said, women stay for the "usual" reasons, Vaughan says. If they are
stay-at-home moms or make less money than their husbands, they stay for
security and the well-being of their children. They also stay for the same
reason Hillary said she stayed with Bill: She still loved him and was able
to recognize his other qualities, Vaughan says.

"Women are more able to see past it (the affair) and not filter everything
about the man through it," she says. "For men, sex is such a critical
thing, it (the affair) diminishes their opinion of their wives."

For those who think men don't cheat as much as women, Vaughan says 40
percent of her telephone consulting is with men who are victims of their
wives' infidelity. "People just assume that a man will flee, but they
don't, and when they stay, they can have a much harder time dealing with
it," Vaughan says. In fact, her research indicates that suicidal tendencies
following infidelity are higher among male victims than women.

Perhaps that's because men tend to view the world in more rigid constructs,
says Scott Haltzman, a Brown University psychiatry professor and author of
"The Secrets of Happily Married Men." "They're really passionate about
rules and agreements," he says. In the past two years, Haltzman has seen
more cases of female infidelity than male infidelity in his private
practice, he says.

In a chat room on Survivinginfidelity.com, a downtrodden yet hopeful
Heftysmurf posts: "I just want to get to the next stage," he writes. "I do
not want to sweep it under the rug. I would like to figure out how we
should talk and what I can do to regain closeness "... She messed me up for
life and needs to own that most of all."

According to Vaughan, men stay for very different reasons than women. If
they are fathers, men don't want to give up regular contact with their
kids, since, in divorce, custody is often granted to the mother. Many also
suffer a significant financial hit if they leave. Alimony and child support
can put a damper on lifestyle and starting a new relationship, Vaughan says.

Moreover, she adds, men are more likely to stay because they want to prove
that their wives made a mistake in straying.

"They have a natural sense of competitiveness and they don't want to give
up what belongs to them," she says.

Ultimately, for both genders, an affair is the "rocking of the boat of
their life," Vaughan says. And the shared history can be enough reason to
stay in the marriage, pick up the pieces, and come out better and stronger.
Even if you never wanted the tragedy to happen in the first place.

"Like any crisis, it's how you use it to rebuild the rest of your life,"
Vaughan says. "I'm not saying everyone should stay. I'm saying we should
respect everyone's reasons and decisions to stay."

Picking up the Pieces

Here are steps to rebuilding a marriage after infidelity from Peggy
Vaughan, author of "The Monogamy Myth" and founder of the Beyond Affairs
Network, an organization of support groups coordinated through
www.dearpeggy.com:

--Sever contact with the third party. If necessary, take steps toward
changing jobs, schools and cities.

--Be patient. Most people think you can forgive and forget, but rebuilding
trust takes time. It is rare to completely recover from the emotional
impact in less than two years.

--The person who had the affair must always answer questions from the
spouse about the infidelity. It is the willingness to answer questions that
diminishes the need to know.

--Don't punish for the answers you get. You asked.

--Commit to responsible honesty. Unlike monogamy, you can monitor honesty
that is for the purpose of strengthening a bond and rebuilding trust.

--Marathons don't work. If they are not effective, limit conversations to
30 minutes. Consult a therapist who specializes in couples therapy and
affairs.

--Remember, you are a team. Ask yourselves what you need to do for the
relationship and the family. It's not just what the person who had the
affair needs to do.

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- IS SIN DEAD?

Interesting that long after the sexual revolution and with so many
questioning the validity of marriage, this USA Today survey found Adultery
the #1 sin.  See article and *Sin ranking* box here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-03-19-sin_N.htm

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