YouTube/Friendship/Ugly Husbands/ Advice Columns/ Teachable Moments/ SF/ Mentoring Saves - 3/26/08

[Smartmarriages]

- MARRIAGE ED AD FOR SINGLES ON YOU TUBE
- FRIENDSHIP KEY TO CREATING A HEALTHY MARRIAGE
- SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE IS AN UGLY HUSBAND, CLAIMS SURVEY
- ANN GRIES ADVICE COLUMN IN INDIANA
- TEACHABLE MOMENT
- BOOKS ON COPING WITH EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS
- SAN FRANCISCO LIGHT
- MENTORING PROGRAM MAY SAVE A BAD MARRIAGE BEFORE IT BEGINS

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- MARRIAGE ED AD FOR SINGLES ON YOU TUBE

Clever! Everyone should get a clever "ad" like this up on the various
websites like YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace. Attend Jason Krafsky's
over-the-top rated workshop for the fine points. - diane
> 315-Thurs July 3, SF
> Rewiring Premarital Preparation
> Jason Krafsky
> Less than a third of engaged couples use our services. Update to fit the needs
> of, and appeal to, 21st century ³wired² couples. Plus how to tap into Youtube,
> Myspace and Facebook.

View the clever Marriage Education commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3T1m6yxWs&feature=related

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- FRIENDSHIP KEY TO CREATING A HEALTHY MARRIAGE

Friendship key to create a healthy marriage
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/family/s_558800.html
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Pittsburgh,PA,USA
By Judi Hopson, Emma Hopson and Ted Hagen Are you so fed up with your
marriage partner, you're ready to call a divorce lawyer? Maybe you can't
think of one ...

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- SECRET TO SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE IS AN UGLY HUSBAND, CLAIMS SURVEY

[I know about the song, "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life,
make an ugly woman your wife" but when I read about this survey my concern
is that the researchers don't know that women are attracted to power - that
as the adage goes, "men and bulls aren't supposed to be handsome" ...or,
don't need to be. That as Henry Kissinger observed, "Power is the ultimate
aphrodisiac." Maybe handsome men don't realize how it works? Or, maybe the
common wisdom has it half wrong?? Let's just hope the research controlled
for power. Maybe on this study the researchers should be required to include
their own photos. Anyone have the Journal article?  -d ]


Secret to successful marriage is an ugly husband, claims survey
The Daily Record (UK)
Mar 24 2008

WOMEN should wed a man who is uglier than them if they want a happy
marriage, according to new research.

Psychologists found blokes who were better looking than their wives were
more likely to be unhappy dealing with married life.

But guys with prettier partners tended to be more content, said the
University of Tennessee.

They rated 82 newlywed couples on their looks then got them to talk about
their problems.

The couples' discussions were filmed in order to measure how emotionally
supportive they were of each other.

Study leader Professor Jim McNulty said: "Men who were more attractive than
their partner had a tendency to offer less emotional and practical support
to their wives.

"But men who were less attractive than their wives demonstrated a tendency
to be more likely to offer support.

"Evolutionary perspectives can help explain why men's attractiveness
appeared to be more detrimental than beneficial to marriage.

"Attractive men have available to them more short-term mating opportunities.
This may make them less satisfied and less committed to the marital
relationship."

He said women are less choosy about what their men look like, as long as
they are able to help them reproduce.

The findings were published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

################################
- ANN GRIES ADVICE COLUMN IN INDIANA

This is a great way to get marriage-education information to the public -
write an advice column for your local paper. Ann, director of the Evansville
Community Marriage Builders, also has her own radio show.  Way to go, Ann!!
- diane

Build positive atmosphere at home to save marriage
The Courier Press
March 24, 2008

My spouse and I are going through a difficult time in our marriage. We seem
to fight about everything. We have stopped talking in order not to fight.
Our house is full of tension.

I am ready to walk away and find someone who will appreciate me. I worry
about our children because I have heard about how bad divorce can be on
children. Should I stay for the sake of the children? - L. W., Evansville

You are correct about the devastating effects of divorce on children. But
there also can be devastating effects to children who are being raised in a
house filled with tension, where parents are not talking to each other. If
you want the best for your children, put energy into saving your marriage.
Your children need to see how mature adults resolve differences in a healthy
way.

You and your spouse would definitely benefit from becoming involved in
marriage counseling, taking a communication class or going to a marriage
weekend.

Every marriage goes through positive and negative experiences. It is up to
you to determine to save your marriage and get help. No one else can make
that decision. Love is a decision and an action. You can decide to act in a
loving way and speak in a kind way. You can do that no matter how your
spouse reacts.

The silent treatment is not an effective way to settle any kind of problem.
Good communication involves both parties speaking and listening. In a
marriage, both partners need love and respect. You might begin by letting
your spouse know that you are willing to make some changes in yourself in
order to bring about change in the relationship. You will need to break the
cycle of the way you have been communicating or not communicating. Try to
find ways to share some positive remarks with your spouse. Be on the lookout
for ways to compliment your spouse. It may be while he or she is interacting
with the children or doing something helpful. Building a more positive
atmosphere in your home will help open the way for better communication.

Your children will be more secure if they know you and your spouse are
committed to the marriage and willing to make improvements. Children can
sense the tension in a home. Settling differences in a healthy way will
disperse the tension. Communication skills can be learned and practiced.
Those skills also can be taught to your children. This will help them in all
areas of their lives.

The health of your marriage and the effect your marriage has on your
children is up to you.

Ann Gries is executive director of Community Marriage Builders.

Visit the site and add your comment. You'll see when you get there that Ann
could use your support:
http://tinyurl.com/ypmfgx

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- TEACHABLE MOMENT

You have to feel terrible for the Spitzers but they certainly provided a
teachable moment.....can't count the number of articles that have featured
marriage-strengthening services and the smartmarriages.com website.  Here's
another one with a positive "you can recover spin" that features both me and
Peggy Vaughan and a nice list of books on coping with infidelity. Have to
hope all this helps.- diane

Marriages often do survive infidelity, counselors say
By CHANDA TEMPLE GUSTER
Newhouse News Service
March 18, 2008

When Silda Wall Spitzer's husband resigned as governor of New York last
week after being linked to a prostitution ring, she stood by him before
flashing bulbs and on live TV.

Such a scene of spousal support has been played out with celebrities and
political couples over and over again, prompting onlookers to declare
they'd leave their marriages in a heartbeat if their spouses were ever
unfaithful.

But would they really?

Many more marriages survive affairs than end after one, according to
psychologist Bert Pitts of Pitts & Associates in Homewood, Ala. And the
older a marriage is, the more likely the couple is to stay together and
work things out.

"People are human; they (mess) up and do things that aren't wise," Pitts
said. "But then, when it's time to consider ending a marriage, whoa! Then
that would bring most of us to our knees."

He added, though, that if a couple opts to reconcile, they should seek
counseling to help repair the damage. They should also be open to
discussing the state of the marriage before the affair. Some marriages have
even ended up being stronger than ever, Pitts said.

Peggy Vaughan, the San Diego-based author of "The Monogamy Myth: A Personal
Handbook for Recovering From Affairs" (Newmarket Press, $14.95), said
people stay in their marriages for various reasons, including money, the
children, the history they share and, yes, love.

In 2004, she questioned 1,083 men and women whose spouses had had affairs,
and found that 76 percent of them were still married to the person who had
the affair.

Another study she did showed that most people recover from the fact that
their partner had sex with someone else long before they recover from the
fact that they were deceived.

"It's the breaking of the trust ... that's more difficult to overcome,"
said Vaughan, of www.dearpeggy.com. Her new book, "Preventing Affairs," is
slated to be released this summer.

But once an affair is uncovered, it's hard for the betrayed spouse to
digest it. It doesn't matter if it was a one-night stand, a prostitute or a
longtime affair with a co-worker, experts said.

And when news of an affair does drop, the faithful spouse needs to
understand it's going to hurt, said minister Brenda Clarke, who founded
Helpmate Ministries. With chapters in central Alabama, the group helps
women overcome everyday issues, including infidelity.

She said when a spouse cheats, that heartache will be just as painful as if
someone has died. But people need to allow themselves time to hurt and
understand it was not their fault, she said.

"Understand that there is nothing wrong with you and know that it will get
better," said Clarke.

Gary Pate, a divorce court judge in Jefferson County, Ala., said that when
spouses do decide to reconcile, they need to know how to deal with the
skeleton they've tucked away in the closet. At some point, the bones will
rattle and come out.

"Sometimes people have no trouble forgiving, but that doesn't mean (they)
can always forget. It does stay there," he said.

"Even if it's a perfectly legitimate reason why (they) got home at 10
instead of 7, in that three-hour span when that spouse doesn't know where
that husband or wife is, you better believe they hear those bones again,"
he said.

Diane Sollee, the Washington, D.C.-based founder and director of
www.smartmarriages.com, said a lot of people gossip about wives on the
national stage, saying they stay in marriages after their husbands stray
for power or for money. But wanting to stay in a marriage is not specific
to one group, Sollee said. It transfers to the middle class and poor, too.

"Whatever level we are at, we have invested our love and lifetime into
these men and these marriages," she said.

BOOKS ON COPING WITH EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS

"My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me: An
Inspiring True Story" by Anne Bercht (Trafford Publishing, $27)

"How Could You Do This to Me?" by Jane Greer with Margery D. Rosen (Main
Street Books, $12.95)

"Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy" by Frank Pittman
(Norton, W.W. & Co., $15.95)

"Infidelity: A Survival Guide" by Don-David Lusterman (New Harbinger
Publications, $14.95)

"After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has
Been Unfaithful" by Janis Abrahms Spring with Michael Spring (Harper
Perennial, $14)

"Close Calls: What Adulterers Want You to Know About Protecting Your
Marriage" by Dave Carder (Northfield Publishers, April 2008, $14.99)

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- SAN FRANCISCO LIGHT

San Francisco, the amazing city by the bay.....in anticipation and to
encourage you to get out early and see the light.  -d

> Poem: "The Changing Light" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from How to Paint
> Sunlight. © New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2001. Order from $5.86 at:
> http://tinyurl.com/36r2tc

> The Changing Light
> 
> The changing light
>             at San Francisco
>     is none of your East Coast light
>            none of your
>                    pearly light of Paris

> The light of San Francisco
>              is a sea light
>                        an island light

> And the light of fog
>         blanketing the hills
>     drifting in at night
>            through the Golden Gate
>                       to lie on the city at dawn

> And then the halcyon late mornings
>     after the fog burns off
>       and the sun paints white houses
>                      with the sea light of Greece
>       with sharp clean shadows
>        making the town look like
>                              it had just been painted

> But the wind comes up at four o'clock
>                                     sweeping the hills
> And then the veil of light of early evening

> And then another scrim
>            when the new night fog
>                             floats in
> And in that vale of light
>                    the city drifts
>                            anchorless upon the ocean

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- MENTORING PROGRAM MAY SAVE A BAD MARRIAGE BEFORE IT BEGINS
Tue Mar 25, 2008 
Maggie Gallagher 

In America today, cohabitation has become a social norm. Why? In large part
because young people are so fearful of divorce. Living together has become
an accepted solution to the problem of figuring out whether a relationship
can last for life.

Mike and Harriet McManus have a vision: America's churches can offer better
answers to a generation of young people torn between the relentless human
need to trust in love and the reality that 50 years of high divorce rates
make it hard to hope.

But religious communities, rather than offering hope, have more or less
accommodated to the young people's anxieties by passively tolerating
cohabitation, say Mike and Harriet in their new book, "Living Together:
Myths, Risks and Answers." The McManuses are clear about one thing: We owe
the next generation more than moral lectures or confused silence, and we owe
them practical help in building successful marriages.

This is particularly true, Mike and Harriet point out, for Christians, who
are called not only to "flee fornication" but to model for the world and for
each other the unbreakable love between Christ and his church. But when
Christian marriages fail at about the same rate as worldly marriages,
Christian communities are failing in their main mission to model God's love.

The practical consequences of marital failure is that churches lose a lot of
the next generation as well. Forty percent of married parents attend church
weekly compared to only about a quarter of parents who are not married.
Divorce and unmarried childbearing not only hurt children and adults, they
interrupt the intergenerational transmission of faith.

Cohabitation certainly does not reduce the risk of divorce and probably
increases it. "You can't practice permanence," as Mike told one young man.
People who cohabit often slide into less-than-ideal marriages because
breaking up is harder to do if you are already sharing bed and board. If
cohabitation doesn't work as a way of preventing divorce and bad marriages,
what does?

The McManuses are not academics -- the greatest strength of their testimony
lies in 20 years of experience in providing extremely practical help to
engaged couples, first in their Bethesda, Md., congregation, and eventually
in many other communities through the marriage mentoring and community
marriage policies they detail on MarriageSavers.org.

What the McManuses do is something quite different from most ministers, who
either exclude cohabiting couples or ignore their cohabitation. The McManus'
church offers all couples -- including cohabiting ones -- a free, extensive
marriage-preparation course given by experienced, married mentor couples who
teach not only the religious significance of marriage but the practical
skills for conflict resolution, even though their church will not marry
cohabiting couples. The message sent? We care about your relationship, and
we will help you build a better one.

One of the things that the mentor couples do is to review the results from a
"premarital inventory" -- a questionnaire that identifies potential
strengths and weaknesses when participants rate statements such as "At times
I am concerned about the silent treatment I get from my future spouse," and
"I am concerned that my future spouse spends money foolishly." Couples who
identify the problems in their relationship can decide to learn how to
handle disagreements in better ways, or (sometimes) decide not to marry at
all.

Of 229 couples that the McManuses mentored who married, just seven have
divorced or separated. Almost one-fifth of the couples they mentored
premaritally decided on their own to break the engagements, which Mike and
Harriet consider equally important.

Marriage is not just one of many issues for pastors and congregations; it is
a test of our capacity to reflect God's love in the world. Rebuilding the
next generation's faith in love, the McManuses say, needs to become a more
urgent priority. 
------------------
You'll have many chances to study at the feet of the Masters in San
Francisco. Mike and Harriet, first recipients of the Smart Marriages Impact
Award way back in 2001, will present a two-day pre-conference training
institute plus workshops on Cohabitation, CMPs, and Divorce Reform. They'll
also host two morning CMP (Community Marriage Policy) roundtables and will
be available at all other times to talk with you at their exhibit.  Order
their book and finds tons of free info on their website at:
http://www.marriagesavers.org

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12th Annual Smart Marriages® Conference, Hilton San Francisco Hotel,
June 30-July 6, 2008  (General Conference July 2-5)
Pre-Conference Training Institutes June 30-July 2
Post-Conference Training Institutes July 6
DOWNLOAD a conference brochure and register at:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/download.brochure.html

List your program and resources on the Directory of Classes at
http://www.smartmarriages.com/directory_browse.html

Order conference audio & video CD/DVD/MP3s: 800-241-7785 or
http://www.iPlaybackSmartMarriages.com

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
http://www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332

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