Great Marriages

Karen and I have been married for over 48 years. That is a very long time to live with one person. It has had its ups and downs. Differences! that's what causes couples to fight. It is well known that the main cause of divorce is the inability to deal with differences.

And, there are no greater differences than those of men and women. Just imagine that every marriage is joining two people into holy matrimony who are almost wholly incompatible and who need a miracle to stay together.

It takes a lot of compromise, forgiveness, patience, sacrifice and patience to survive marriage. But here is the good news. Marriage changes from surviving to thriving as we learn how to trust each other. I suppose it is trust that makes the difference. When one partner develops a lack of trust for the other a downward spiral of hurt, anger and bitterness is kicked off that can be hard to heal. If healing fails or isn't attempted, divorce occurs.

I am often amazed when I speak with people who assume that every time a spouse fails to remember an important event, read his/her mind or doesn't speak softly it is taken as an intentional, premeditated hostile take over. These couples are so emotionally enmeshed that despite a legal divorce, they cannot be separated.

Divorce is easy but separation is impossible.

Marriage counseling is often focused on helping the couple realize that they did not marry each other because they were motivated by hate. Nobody on their wedding day thinks their marriage should be painful and destructive. But it doesn't take long for mistrust to develop and the trouble begins.

Families at Work

The central focus of Sweeten Life Systems is to enhance the relationships of individuals and organizations. It is impossible to have healthy relationships in the office and factory is they are dysfunctional at home.

The Families at Work Institute and has a lot to say to the situation we face today in America. To read the entire report go to: http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/3wbooklet.pdf

Today’s U.S. workforce and workplace are in transition. In Families and Work Institute’s (FWI) nationally representative study of the U.S. workforce, the National Study of the Changing Workforce, we find dramatic
changes over the past 25 years.

To begin, the workforce is aging. In 1977, just over a third of the workforce (38%) was over 40-years-old; today, more than half (56%) is (over 40).

Women today play an increasingly vital role, making up nearly half of the
wage and salaried workforce. In addition, work hours for many employees are climbing and jobs have become more hectic and demanding. Life at home has also changed with an increase in the number of dual earner couples in the workplace (from 66% of couples in 1977 to 78% today), which has created pressure among working families.

It is no wonder that 55 percent of employees feel they don’t have enough time for themselves, 63 percent feel they don’t have enough time for their spouses or partners and 67 percent feel they don’t have enough time for their children.

Repercussions of these trends are being experienced by employers as well. FWI data reveal that 39 percent of employees are not fully engaged in their jobs, 54 percent are less than fully satisfied with their jobs and 38 percent are somewhat or very likely to make a concerted effort to find a new job in the coming year.

Employers are challenged to recruit talent, engage and retain workers, and maximize productivity.

How can employers accomplish their goals and continue the high productivity if families are so stressed that individuals cannot function well? What can we do? It is clear that additional family counseling alone is not enough.

I am a Family Therapist who has spent a great deal of his adult life counseling couples and families. I also founded two counseling centers and one in-patient psychiatric hospital to treat distressed people.

The only answer is for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to establish centers that will actually teach people how to develop healthy relationships. We need hundreds of churches in each city that are so concerned about individual children that they equip adults how to be good parents.

I am happy to see "Divorce Recovery" groups springing up in a few of the 5,000 or so congregations in Greater Cincinnati, but that is too late. We know the major causes of divorce and we know how to teach people to avoid one. Why do so few churches and community organizations do anything to prevent divorce?

It is possible to prevent problems. It is also less expensive and less traumatizing to everyone concerned. Why not do it???

Dr. Phil and Hope

My wife told me that the famous, and very wealthy, Dr. Phil had a couple on his TV show this week who was having some serious problems in their marriage. Phil, in his usual confident manner, said: "I can tell in just a few minutes of an interview whether there is any hope for a couple. "

Phil proceeded to tell the couple, and the entire world, that the signs of a hopeless marriage are simple: Personal attacks that include Criticism and Contempt.

Phil was partially correct, Criticism and Contempt along with acting like a stone wall and withdrawing into a cold shell, are usually of a divorce train a coming. However, Phil failed to mention that such marriages can be saved and healed if a couple will work hard in good faith.

He also forgot to mention that the signs of divorce he was quoting came from Dr. John Gottman's research. Gottman's materials are those we referenced in our June training in Clermont County, Ohio. That is the DVD we are giving away for the asking.

Why is Phil acting so hopeless? Why are so many secular therapists feeling so helpless about helping people in trouble? Now the American Psychological Association even says it is wrong to help a man or woman who wants to change his/her sexual compulsions.

Why are they feeling so helpless and hopeless when we know people can change? We know that counseling actually works in most cases. We see evidence of changed lives daily.

So, don't give up. If you are having conflict with someone you love, get a counselor, social worker or psychologist. You can also get our DVD and read our books. Don't give up!

A Marital Cross Roads

Couples come to a critical path in the road of marital togetherness. If they turn the positive way and travel along that path, the marriage will grow. If not, it will dissolve.

That fork in the road is called, attack or attend. If one of the mates begins to personally attack the other, the marriage is in real danger. If, however, they find a way to attend to each other the marriage will grow. Christian attacks are as traumatic as a non-Christian attack.

This research looks at the changes in a mate's heart rate, breathing and other physical manifestations of anxiety as shown on monitors. It is not based on self-reports or observations. It is very accurate in predicting present and future problems.

Gottman and his colleagues have gathered and sorted data about thousands of marriages. They correlated that data with marital satisfaction and marital disillusion and have a good record at sensing when a couple is in trouble.

I adapted the Gottman information into a simple, seven-point scale, which can be used to assess the level of a couple’s marital stress. The scale is useful for teaching couples how to assess their own level of resiliency or danger. It also offers suggestions for taking appropriate action at each stage of the scale. Gottman’s insights, and my adaptation of it, can be used to prepare couples to avoid the attack marriage and emphasize attending skills.

I presented these materials and discussed my scale at a recent conference in Taiwan. Before the talk, I received a note from a person whose husband had left her for another woman. She asked How do I deal with this man now that we are divorced? Should I allow him to our children? I think he will damage the children. She was thinking like a victim rather than a victor. Such thinking can destroy her and her children.

After seeing the conflict chart, she wrote another note. I now know why my husband wanted to be with someone else. I never gave him a chance to tell his side of things and I attacked him about a lot of issues. Thanks for teaching. I am going to ask him for forgiveness and tell him that he can see the children.

Many see themselves as the innocent parties in a divorce or serious marital conflict. Since they never committed adultery or another gross sin, they perceive themselves to be the good guys and their partners to have been the bad guys. However, the sins of the mouth can be as damaging as the sins of sex to our intimate relationships.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Divorce Stats

According to the 1990 U.S. Census (the 2000 census didn't ask about marital status), at least 52% of all first marriages will end in divorce.

Among those who have been divorced, 75% will remarry. And 60% of those remarriages will end in divorce.

Christianity is no panacea for the divorce epidemic, either.

While 25% of all adults in America have experienced at least one divorce, 27% of Christians will split up. Evangelical Christians appear to fare even worse: Members of nondenominational Protestant and Baptist churches experience the nation's highest divorce rates at 34% and 29%, respectively. The article is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/outreach/articles/hopeagain.html

Most people never intend to get a divorce but have lost hope.

TV Show

I stumbled on to a pretty good TV show last night. It is called One Week to Save Your Marriage from http://www.buzzle.com/boards.asp?board=275&message=132923

ONE WEEK TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE Hosted by Dr. Robi Ludwig TLC’s bold new reality show for 2006

America’s marriages are in crisis with divorce rates shooting through the roof. Many couples find that even within the first five years of marriage, they are in a matrimonial rut of arguments, resentments and bitterness, and can see no other way out.

Now, TLC’s bold new TV series, ONE WEEK TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE, aims to get those relationships back on track. Psychotherapist host Dr. Robi Ludwig, a divorce buster for over fifteen years, is given just seven days to steer a couple’s marriage off the rocks.

In an exclusive social experiment, couples allow their homes to be rigged with remotely operated cameras that record their natural behavior around the clock. Dr. Ludwig is thus able to observe their marriages in the raw. With this unique access she’s able to figure what the flash-points are in the couple’s relationship. When things go wrong she’s there to fix it.

Following her intensive observation, Dr. Ludwig devises a customized series of challenging and revealing tasks for the couple to perform that help her offer them valuable tips about getting their marriage back on the right path.

I suggest that couples watch it together and discuss the principles. They might work for you.