How Far Would You Go To Save Your Marriage? - 11/16/09

Mon Nov 16 11:33:20 EST 2009

- HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE?

This article in Redbook reprinted this morning on the MSN homepage is
generating an incredible number of calls from MEN looking for 1) the Stosny
Boot Camp and 2) the Smart Marriages conference.  Many are disappointed that
there's not a Stosny Boot Camp in their state. You can help by taking the
training at Smart Marriages -- Stosny is presenting his two-day
preconference Institute Boot Camp training.  He's also presenting a one-day
post conference training with Pat Love on How to Improve Your Marriage
Without Talking About It.  See both Institute descriptions here: #110 and
#908. He's also presenting several times during the conference including
Love Without Hurt. I refer these callers (so far, all males!) to attend the
conference and I also send them to Stosny's Directory Listing where they can
sign up for a Boot Camp.   http://www.smartmarriages.com/directory/44
- diane 
--------------------------

How Far Would You Go To Saver Your Marriage?

Would you send your husband to boot camp? Install a stripper pole in your
bedroom? As these five couples discovered, when love is on the skids,
sometimes you have to take a big risk to get it back on track.

By Colleen Oakley
Redbook Magazine

(Here is one of the FIVE couples featured. The article doesn't give the full
story  Steve McDougald attended the Smart Marriages Conference in Denver
(the full monty, not just one day) and Amy joined him for the conference in
SF in 2008! Nice!  When distributing postcards, be sure you explain that the
public is warmly welcomed to attend.  - diane)

"He enrolled in husband boot camp."

Amy McDougald, 41, and Steve McDougald, 43, married 21 years;
Aurora, OH

Amy: For most of the 20 years I'd been married to Steve, he was like two
different people: really nice or very short-tempered. I never knew who was
coming home from work that day. He seemed to hate my family, his work, many
of my friends ‹ and, at times, me. In 2007, a few days before we were going
on a cruise, we got into a big argument over something small. I tried to
walk out of our bedroom. Steve blocked my way, and I was so scared that I
locked myself in our bathroom, refusing to come out until he left. That's
when I realized I was afraid of my husband ‹ and there was no way I could go
on a cruise with him.

I was about to separate from Steve for the third time in our marriage when
he announced he was going to a Smart Marriages Conference in Denver.
Frankly, I doubted that a short conference would make any difference. When
he came home, though, I noticed an immediate change: He didn't yell, and he
was very affectionate. When he mentioned that Dr. Steven Stosny, the
program's founder, also offered a three-day-long boot camp, I thought he
should definitely go. If one day did this much, what could three days do?
The answer: a miracle. After boot camp, Steve was able to admit for the
first time in 20 years the damage and pain he had caused, and he became
willing to work on healing our marriage. It wasn't easy; it took a full year
for me to feel sure that Steve's anger issues were no longer a part of our
relationship. But it was worth it.

Today, we love spending time with each other, and we even teach a class at
our church to help couples improve their marriages. We celebrated our
renewed connection by finally taking that seven-day cruise, and this time, I
was more than happy to be stuck with Steve in the middle of the ocean.

Steve: Amy and I used to fight about everything. Over the course of our
marriage, I became increasingly demanding and raised my voice if I felt like
I wasn't heard, which would cause Amy to shut down and get scared. When she
canceled our cruise because she didn't want to be alone with me for seven
days, it was a big wake-up call. I wasn't ready to give up on us, so I went
online and literally went shopping for advice and professionals that could
help us in a short amount of time. I came across a conference called Smart
Marriages. I was looking for an experience that was different from our
failed marriage counseling sessions.

The conference helped me accept that I had an anger problem, and while
there, I discovered that Dr. Stosny offers a three-day boot camp
specifically for men to learn how to handle anger. At the camp, I practiced
responding to hurt feelings with compassion instead of anger. I basically
trained my brain with a new choice ‹ to protect my wife instead of
responding in anger. Over time, Amy has grown to trust and feel safe with me
because I've stopped raising my voice, and I try to meet her needs. She
associates me with positive feelings instead of negative ones. It's
absolutely worth doing, and I'm so glad I did.

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE AND FOUR MORE SOLUTIONS:
http://tinyurl.com/yg3g8ez

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