Free MML coach call/ Black Marriage Day contest & Resources/ PREVENTION/ Parental Divorce - 1/27/09

[Smartmarriages]

- FREE MASTERING THE MYSTERIES OF LOVE COACHING CALL
- BLACK MARRIAGE DAY RESOURCES NOW ONLINE
- ANOTHER GREAT ARGUMENT FOR PROVIDING PREVENTIVE EDUCATION
- DOWNLOAD DIBBLE SCHOOL/YOUTH FLIER
- ROWING IN ALL KINDS OF WAYS AND PLACES
- MY PARENTS HAD A DIVORCE

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- FREE MASTERING THE MYSTERIES OF LOVE COACHING CALL

Dear Diane,
We just completed a wonderful Mastering the Mysteries of Love (MML)
bridgeline call with Mary Ortwein (co-author of MML) today. She shared lots
of insights on MML learning, practice and teaching, and we had a lot of good
Q&A -- all on MML. To listen to a recording of the call, dial 641-715-3470
and use access code is 526679 #.  The call lasts 55 minutes.
This recording will be available until Tuesday, Feb. 3, at 12noon.
Bento Leal
California Healthy Marriages

Listening to this call might help you decide whether or not you want to sign
up for the two-day Mastering the Mysteries of Love Institute training at the
Orlando Smart Marriages conference.

> 106 Two Days - Tuesday & Wednesday, July 7 & 8 in ORLANDO
> Mastering the Mysteries of Love (MML) RE
> Mary Ortwein, MS
> Teach couples of any stage or culture the skills to build connection and
> intimacy while finding solutions to their most challenging issues. Add-on
> seminars.  Ideal for low-income, community or church based. Spanish version
> available. $150 spouse discount. Click for more information:
> http://www.smartmarriages.com/re.html

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- BLACK MARRIAGE DAY RESOURCES NOW ONLINE

Everything you need to have your best Black Marriage Day event ever is now
online and available for download.  Plus we are launching the first Black
Marriage Day First Comes Love Online Film Festival.  Have your high school
and college age youth create a 3-5 minute film on what marriage looks like
in your community.  Cash prizes for the winners and their films will air on
our website.  Deadline for entries is March 2.  For Black Marriage Day
resources and details about the Film Festival, visit
http://www.blackmarriageday.com.  You need the free software winzip to open
the file.   I look forward to hearing all about your exciting events.  Black
Marriage Day: March 22, 2009.
Nisa Muhammad
Wedded Bliss Foundation

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- ANOTHER GREAT ARGUMENT FOR PROVIDING PREVENTIVE EDUCATION

This CDC funded study looks at parent, not marriage, education but the
lesson would surely generalize.  The point made is that parent education
services were provided to the entire community, not just to parents in
trouble and the findings: *the prevention study was the first to reduce
child maltreatment in a test involving several large geographic areas.*

Likewise, we argue that the best approach to reversing marital and family
breakdown is to make marriage education information and skills training
available community-wide......that's the meaning of preventive education.
You don't wait until people are dying to tell them about diet and exercise.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/548412/?sc=dwhn

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- DOWNLOAD DIBBLE SCHOOL/YOUTH FLIER

http://www.smartmarriages.com/uploaded/Dibble.School.Youth.Marriage.Educatio
n.pdf

If that doesn't work, you can download it here while you check out the three
training options:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/institutes.html

> 116 Two Day - Tuesday & Wednesday, July 7 & 8 in ORLANDO
> School & Youth Marriage Education Programs
> Kay Reed, chair - CLICK FOR FLYER to post in your community
> CONNECTIONS - Char Kamper, MA
> LoveU2: Relationships Plus - Marline Pearson, MA
> We have to start with the kids! These research-based programs teach students
> the skills and knowledge that are central to building and maintaining healthy
> marriages. Curricula easily adapted to classroom, church, agency, and youth
> group settings. No spouse discount. Click for more information on the three
> training options: http://www.smartmarriages.com/school.html

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- ROWING IN ALL KINDS OF WAYS AND PLACES

I was sent this clip from some kind of techie website/comments section just
to show there are all kinds of ways/places to spread the word.

>>> Smart Marriages Conference 2009 - Don¹t Miss It! - marriagejunkie.com
>>> 01/28/2009 The 2009 Smart Marriages Conference
>>> is planned for July 8-11, 2009 in Orlando, Florida! Connect with many of the
>>> movers-and-shakers in the marriage movement at Smart Marriages! Bring plenty
>>> of Red Bull and get ready for a power-packed, morning ¹til night, baptism in
>>> the latest-and-greatest information and new research in the marriage field!

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- MY PARENTS HAD A DIVORCE

> Diane, This article "My Parents Had a Divorce" written by a student for the
University of California-Irvine online newspaper is incredibly powerful,
> reinforcing the message of Elizabeth Marquardt's "Between Two Worlds."  - Amy
Gilford 


My Parents Had a Divorce...
by A. E.
Volume 42, Issue 15  |  Jan 26 2009

My parents got divorced shortly after Sept.11. It happened, like the coup de
grace of a one-two punch. So every time I think back to that October
afternoon when they sat my brother and me down in the guest bedroom, I
involuntarily think of burning and collapsing buildings. I don¹t think I
need to explain the symbolism any further. I was in seventh grade, my middle
brother in fifth and my youngest in pre-school.

It didn¹t really come as a surprise to me. In fact, I was expecting ­ and
dreading ­ it. In the preceding months, I heard them fight more and more
through closed doors and from upstairs to the point that I thought it was
normal. That¹s when the dreading began.

So when my mom asked my middle brother and me ­ they didn¹t tell my youngest
brother until later ­ ³Would you please come into the guest room with us for
a second?² a pre-recorded message punched on in my brain. Please don¹t let
them be getting a divorce, please don¹t let them be getting a divorceŠ

But they were. Damn my ESP.

I don¹t remember everything in specific detail, but I think my mother did
most of the talking. She sat with us on the floor against the bed, my dad in
an office chair. My mom started by gently informing us that they had been
fighting a lot recently ­ as if everyone within a two-house radius of us
hadn¹t heard.

There was more easing-into, and all the while I had this sinking feeling in
my chest that kept growing heavier. When she finally uttered the words, ³So
your father and I are getting separated,² I felt like 15,000 volts had
jumped through my body.

My middle brother buried his face in my mom¹s shoulder and cried a lot. Loud
and shameless sweater-muffled wails that I¹m sure made my youngest brother
curious about what was going on behind the locked door. I didn¹t react for a
while, and the three of us just sat in silence, while my brother continued
to cry.

I know my dad said something to break the silence. I don¹t remember what,
but I remember how. My father was an old-world man of fifty, serious and
down-to-earth, but also full of love and jocularity. He had survived
religious persecution, poverty, war, immigration and three boys. In short,
he was and still is my hero, the person that I base so many of my life
philosophies on.

That day in the guest room was the first and only time in my life I have
ever seen him cry. Seeing his eyes wet, face redden, nose sniff until he
finally buried his face in one hand and shook silently was like watching
Superman plummet from the sky. That moment was one of my burning towers and
even though I¹ve tried, I can¹t forget about it.

I must have said less than ten words throughout the whole ordeal. My parents
kept trying to get me to talk but I refused. My brother, in stark contrast,
bared his soul to the guest room and cried himself hoarse.

But I seethed inside. I was surprisingly wrathful. When we were done some
three hours later, I promptly got up and left without a word.

I remember a lot of anger the following months. I leapt at my brothers¹
throats for piddling reasons, was cold to my parents and there was some
spontaneous crying on everyone¹s part ­ except the youngest brother¹s. I
don¹t really know when they broke the news to him.

I was angry at everything and everyone. I hated my math teacher because I
sucked at math. I hated my school whenever some kids made fun of me. And I
hated my parents for not loving each other ­ for not loving me. I felt
betrayed and lonely.

There was a lot of anger. My parents gave me a blank sketchbook and
suggested I write down what I was feeling as a source of emotional release.
I won¹t repeat what I filled that sketchbook with, but I will tell you I put
down a lot of hateful ­ and now that I think about it ­ scary thoughts and
images. Over the years, I evened out. But it¹s scary to think how much fury
I had in me.

Eventually, my father lost his job and had to move up to the Silicon Valley
because he couldn¹t find a job down here. The rest of us stayed here, and he
supported the whole family from afar. He was nearing his sixties, and I
suspect ageism played a filthy hand in denying him so many jobs.

By then it was just me, my mother and two brothers. I wasn¹t nearly so angry
by that time. At first my father came to visit every weekend, then every
two, then every three, then once a month. That¹s as bad as he let it get.

Soon he refused to come inside the house because it ³held too many
memories.² I initially scoffed at this and wrote it off as weakness because
I was young and knew everything.

Then I experienced my first bad break-up and found I could no longer enter
my ex-girlfriend¹s house ­ the smell, the furniture, the atmosphere were all
too much. When my mother got re-married, my father made it a point to park
around the corner from the house to pick us up during his visits so he
wouldn¹t run into her husband. I don¹t think he ever did.

My dad would drive 300 miles so he could see us, his only kids. An
eight-hour trip, one-way.

I¹ve heard some kids go through the phase of wondering what they did wrong
to make their parents choose to get divorced. They take fault for something
that they could in no way have prevented. I don¹t think I went through that.

I wholeheartedly, 100 percent put the blame on my parents. That may or may
not have been a result of my immaturity, and as I said, I was an angry kid
when my parents broke up.

That¹s more or less where I am now. My middle brother has gone off to
college. My mother divorced her second husband (I only felt sad for my
mother) and has now moved up north near my father with my youngest brother.
Not to get back together, but so the youngest can develop a relationship
with his real father before he gets too old.

It puts a small emotional strain on me when I go back to my hometown for my
friends ­ namely, by making me homeless ­ but I want my little brother to
see his real father, too. And secretly, I just like seeing them all together
at once when I go home to visit.

We¹re not a ³real² nuclear family like before; my parents live in separate
apartments and shuttle my little brother back and forth between them. But it
beats the hell out of my father having to drive sixteen hours total just to
see us. All I want for them is the stability and peace of mind they deserve
so much.

My parents get along fine now, and my mother even goes out to dinner with us
sometimes when we¹re with our father. I¹m never sad at those dinners.

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13th Annual Smart Marriages® Conference, Shingle Creek Resort,
Orlando, Florida, July 6-12, 2009 (General Conference July 8-11)
Pre-Conference Training Institutes July 6-8
Post-Conference Training Institutes July 12
 
Shingle Creek Resort: http://www.rosenshinglecreek.com/

Conference schedule, registration, & exhibit information:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/conferencedetails.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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