Opportunity Knocks / Receiving Love / Perel in California / Grandparent Week / Marriage Quote - 9/23/10

[Smartmarriages]

- A GREAT OPPORTUNITY BROUGHT TO US BY THE U.S. CENSUS
- DO YOU UNDERMINE THE GIFT OF LOVE? - Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly
Hunt 
- ESTHER PEREL TEACHING IN CALIFORNIA
- GRANDPARENT WEEK
----------------------------

- A GREAT OPPORTUNITY BROUGHT TO US BY THE U.S. CENSUS
I agree with Bill Coffin, the new poverty stats provide a great opening for
talking about strong, healthy marriages as a solution and about what you and
your community initiatives and programs can do to help couples succeed.  As
I¹ve long said, if you want to improve the world, marriage is a great place
to start and Rector makes it easy for you ­ click on the link to his article
and he¹s laid it all out with talking points.
- diane 

Diane
You distributed one of the Rector/Heritage reports last week:  Marriage:
America¹s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty - http://tinyurl.com/23hmsca
I¹d like to suggest that those on the list get active and write letters to
editor, etc. to make sure those facts are known by the general public. They
can find more information on the poverty stats here: http://billcoffin.org
Bill Coffin

----------------------------
- DO YOU UNDERMINE THE GIFT OF LOVE? - Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly
Hunt 
 By Dawn Raffel, September 15, 2010
CNN Living 

Keeping your guard up in a relationship is guaranteed to keep the love out,
too. 
 
"When it comes to love relationships, things are often not what they seem,"
Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt write in their book "Receiving Love"
-- and you might say the two of them, marriage therapists married to each
other, are their own best object lesson.
 
Seven years ago, although they were writing best-selling self-help books,
training therapists, and leading couples workshops throughout the world,
their personal union was crumbling.

On the verge of divorce, they tripped over the snaky root of their
discontent. 
 
"One morning, when we were most troubled," Helen says, "we were in our
bedroom and I asked Harville, 'Do you believe that I love you?' Harville
thought about that for a couple of seconds and said, 'No, I don't think you
do.' I was distraught. I could only respond, 'Given all that I do for you
and our life together, how could you not know how much I love you?'"

Harville understood that his feelings were irrational, he says, but
alienation was stubbornly entrenched. No matter what Helen gave him
emotionally, it had little impact because he suspected there were strings
attached. 

"Only with time and reflection did I realize that I was not able to
recognize genuine love when it was offered," he says. . . .

. . . "The common wisdom," they write, "is that romantic relationships would
stay happy if people did a better job of giving to each other. But that's
not what we've discovered. We've found that many people need to do a better
job of receiving the gifts their partners are already offering. It's
suprising how often the compliments, appreciation and encouragement of a
well-intentioned partner make no dent in the armor of an unhappy partner."
 
Harville ticks off the ways we deflect what we secretly crave: by devaluing
praise; by assuming the other person is insincere; by criticizing the sender
of a positive message for not getting it right, not doing it on time, or not
doing it often enough; by not listening; or by feeling embarrassed. We also
block loving words by hardening our chest and stomach muscles.

For the full article: http://tinyurl.com/2bauzcb
__________________
- ESTHER PEREL TEACHING IN CALIFORNIA
You loved her at the past three Smart Marriages conferences, here¹s your
chance for more.  

Workshop: "Mating in Captivity: Reconciling Attachment, Intimacy and
Sexuality in Long-term Relationships"
October 29, 2010 - Monterey, CA
Early Registration by 9/29/10, Register online at www.mccamft.org

October 30, 2010 - Davis, CA
Workshop: "The State of Affairs: Rethinking our clinical attitudes toward
infidelity"
For more info: http://tinyurl.com/23866t8

_________________

- GRANDPARENT WEEK
Hi Diane, 
When I first saw this title, Intentional Grandparents, I assumed  that Bill
Doherty wrote the book but it appears someone else latched onto the  concept
of being ³intentional² Š. useful in all relationships. When I read the
article, I, of course, thought of you and your grandkid week.  If you don¹t
already know about this site it is a good resource
http://www.grandparents.com.
Here¹s the article:
http://www.grandparents.com/gp/content/activitiesandevents/everyday-activiti
es/article/grandparent-camp-ramona-robertson.html
Judy Johnsen

For those that are new to the list and who might wonder what Judy is talking
about by my Œgrandkid week¹, I have a 15 year ritual that I call  Gramma
Week.  I was always so busy working on the Smart Marriages® conference
(which I started just as the first of my 5 grandkids was born), that I came
up with Gramma Week as something we could look forward to each August, after
the conference was over.  Last year I took them to Niagara Falls and the NY
State Fair (the world¹s largest) and this year we went to a water park with
amazingly tall slides where I think I was the only person over 50 that did
the 73 foot, tunnel of darkness, drop-slide. As you see, the benefits are
not just for the kids.  I urge you to start planning now for next summer.
Here is how I describe it on the Gift Certificates page
http://tinyurl.com/2awqecu.

Establish a Grandparents Week where you babysit your grandkids but make it
clear that the purpose is to give their parents a "romantic week" to renew
their honeymoon spirit.  Or, do a weekend or two if that is all you can
manage. The message is important. I try to make it 10 days to two weeks,
partly because a week is never long enough for this Gramma and my five
grandkids.  I can attest to the fact that my married adult children look
forward to this all year - they tell me how great it is for their marriage.
And, the kids definitely get the "romantic marriage message".  

--------------------------------
- MARRIAGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
If the marriage ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
Scott Gardner
--------------------------------
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