Love Lessons from the Smart Marriages® Conference

We know communication is important, but just how do we do it? The Daily Temperature Reading, created by Virginia Satir, is a step-by-step guide to getting it right. Practice for a month and soon the behaviors will become habits. Do them all - even if at first they seem artificial or corny. These simple but crucial skills can make the difference between misery and happiness.

Appreciations: Share five things you appreciate about each other. These can range from the simple “I like your smile” to the sublime “I like it that you were able to kiss and make up after I forgot to pick you up last night.” Appreciations build up credit in the love bank. It can be a nice surprise to realize just how much our partners notice and appreciate.

Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams: Describe three things you hope for in the long run (”I hope to complete a marathon by the time I’m 40″) and in the short run (”This week-end I’d like to spend a half-hour alone with my dad when he visits.”) A partner who understands your dreams is able to help them happen. Remember that hopes change as we go along and it’s important to keep each other current.

New Information: We often forget to update our partner about a change in plans or circumstances. We tell people at work or a family member and think we’ve told our spouse. Make the daily updates a ritual. Information like “The dentist said Bobby won’t need braces after all” or “I’ll have to be in San Francisco an extra day” is crucial to staying in-synch and feeling connected.

Puzzles: Clear-up big or little mysteries before they become suspicions, jealousy, false assumptions, or resentments. Most “puzzles” have simple explanations. “You promised you’d water the tomatoes before you left this morning. What happened?” “The water was turned off. Was it back on when you got up?” You have to ask.

Complaints with Request for Change: Get in the habit of saying what you want rather than what you don’t want. Describe a specific behavior that bothers you and explain how you’d like it done. Instead of “I get furious when you call and don’t leave a message,” say, “Honey, when you call and get the machine, please don’t say ‘It’s me’ and hang up. Say why you’re calling, and when you’ll call back, or be home, or whatever it was you were calling to tell me.” If you forget to say why you were calling. Call back. Even if it’s long distance. It’s an inexpensive investment in your marriage. Cheaper than a dozen roses.

H. Wallace Goddard, Ph.D. works for the University of

One of the greatest difficulties of being a human is that we never can see within the heart, mind, and experience of another person. This is especially problematic in marriage where, based on years of experience, we think we know our partner.  We usually are only partly right about what our partner is experiencing. That is why it is so important to draw out your partner’s point of view. A good listener has a big advantage in marriage.

Validate her emotions. “I can see why you would feel that way.” or “No wonder you feel bad.” or “I don’t know how you have tolerated it this long.” When a partner feels strong emotions, it is a good time to listen and support. As the emotions lessen, it may be helpful to ask your partner how you can help: “Do you want me to just listen or would you like me to help you brainstorm solutions?”

Express affection. Tell your partner “I’m sorry you’re going through this. I love you.” Understanding and the support it conveys are very healing. In fact, there is hardly anything a marriage partner can do regularly that will build a relationship as much as being understanding.

All of these suggestions are more difficult to do if you feel that your partner is attacking you. For ideas on dealing with that situation, see the unit on conflict in marriage.

Because the pain of others makes us uncomfortable, it is natural that we respond to pain with advice, distraction or other efforts to minimize the pain. Unfortunately this prevents the person with the pain from figuring out their feelings and healing from the inside. While it may not be natural or easy for us to respond to pain with understanding and compassion, it can be learned. And it can make a big difference for each partner and for the relationship.

Applications:

Think about the times that your partner has shared pain, disappointment or frustration. What are your usual responses? Most of us automatically say unhelpful things. Notice if you find yourself using any of the following UNHELPFUL responses:

Giving advice:

“What you need to do is . . . “

Talking about your own feelings and experiences instead of theirs:

“That same thing happened to me. . . .”

Making their pain seem unimportant:

“Everyone suffers. What makes you so special?”

Maybe you sometimes have used good listening skills. See if you have used (or are ready to try) some of the following HELPFUL ways of showing understanding:

Acknowledge your partner’s feelings:

“I can see that you feel strongly about this.”

Invite more discussion:

“I would like to understand. Please tell me more.”

Acknowledge that your partner’s pain is real for him or her.

“You must feel awful.”

Plan a helpful response to use next time your partner shares pain with you.

Read more here

Seven Principles

In his book, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, Gottman discusses behaviors that he has observed in marriages that are successful and those that are detrimental to marriage based on his research conducted at his lab in Seattle, Washington. He has outlined seven principles that will reinforce the positive aspects of a relationship and help marriages endure during the rough moments.

1. Enhance Your Love Maps. Gottman defines a love map as the place in your brain where you store information pertaining to your partner. This is crucial in really knowing your partner, their dreams, hopes, interests, and maintaining their interest throughout the relationship.
2. Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration. This means laying down a positive view about your spouse, respecting and appreciating their differences.
3. Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away. Acknowledging your partner’s small moments in life and orienting yourself towards them will maintain that necessary connection that is vital for the relationship.
4. Let Your Partner Influence You. It is important to maintain your own identity in a relationship, but it is equally important to yield to your partner and give in. If both partners allow one another this influence, then they will learn to respect one another on a deeper level.
5. Solve Your Solvable Problems. It is important to compromise on issues that can be resolved, which Gottman believes can be accomplished by these five steps: soften your startup, learn to make and receive repair attempts, soothe yourself and each other, compromise, and be tolerant of each other’s faults.
6. Overcome Gridlock. Major issues that cannot be resolved because both partners’ views are so fundamentally different involves understanding of the other person and deep communication. The goal is to at least get to a position that allows the other person to empathize with the partner’s view, even if a compromise cannot be reached.
7. Create Shared Meaning. Create a shared value system that continually connects the partners through rituals/traditions, shared roles and symbols
8. Click here to view the embedded video.

Each year the National Marriage Project writes a report about the state of marriages in the USA and also highlights an aspect of marriage.  This year’s report focus on money in marriage. 

New ‘State of Our Unions’ Report Focuses on Money and Marriage During Great Recession

December 7, 2009 — It’s a bad time to be a working-class man with no college education. Such men have borne the brunt of job losses since 2007, and new research finds that men are 61 percent less likely to be happy in a marriage if they work fewer hours than their wives. The study predicts that the so-called “mancession” will undercut marriage in working-class communities, furthering a “divorce divide” that has been growing since the 1980s between couples with college degrees and those with less education.

That’s one of the findings of the 2009 “State of Our Unions” report, issued today by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values. With a focus on how the so-called “Great Recession” may be roiling or solidifying marriages, the “Money and Marriage” report includes several new studies alongside a statistical wrap-up of marriage in America based on the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and elsewhere.

Among the findings:

• Divorce fell during the first full year of the Great Recession – the first annual dip since 2005 – evidence that the challenges of job losses, foreclosures and depleted retirement accounts may be driving some couples to stick together. The divorce rate fell 4 percent in 2008 to 16.9 divorces per 1,000 married women, after rising from 16.4 in 2005 to 17.5 in 2007 (a 7 percent increase).

If trends observed during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s are once again at work, some of the decline is due to economic factors that lead couples merely to temporarily delay divorce, but there is also another dynamic at work: Tough times foster real family solidarity and encourage many couples to stick together, said U.Va. sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project. Many couples are rediscovering the longstanding sociological truth that marriage is one of society’s best social insurance plans, he said.

• Credit card debt and financial conflict are corrosive to marriages, whereas financial assets strengthen the marital bond, finds new research by Jeffrey Dew, a professor of family studies at Utah State University and formerly a postdoctoral research associate at U.Va. His research indicates that financial conflict is a top predictor of divorce. Couples who report disagreeing over finances once a week are over 30 percent more likely to divorce than couples who disagree about finances a few times per month. Dew also finds that couples who had no assets were 70 percent more likely to divorce than couples with $10,000 in assets.

• Men, particularly working-class and poor men, have absorbed 75 percent of job losses since 2007. This “mancession,” particularly among those with only a high-school education, might foster gender-role reversals in contemporary marriages as unemployed or underemployed men take up more child care and housework. That’s good news for gender equality and marital comity, argues Christine Whelan, a professor of sociology at the University of Iowa.

But new research by Wilcox suggests the “mancession” will undercut marriage in working-class communities, furthering a “divorce divide” between college-educated couples and those with less education that has been growing since the 1980s. His analysis of the 2000 Survey of Marriage and Family Life finds that, among couples with children at home, husbands who work less hours than their wives are 61 percent less likely to report that they are “very happy” in their marriages compared to men who work as many or more hours than their wives.

• Couples can improve their finances by reversing a stereotypical division of labor – have her do the investing while he handles the shopping. Research from Ron Wilcox, a professor at U.Va.’s Darden School of Business and author of the book “Whatever Happened to Thrift?,” finds that men tend to be more thrifty shoppers because they take less pleasure in shopping. Meanwhile, women tend to have a less inflated view of their own investing skills compared to men, so they are more likely to seek professional investment advice, and less likely to engage in active stock trading that runs up fees and reduces long-term profits.

In A Generation at Risk: Growing Up in an Era of Family Upheaval, scholars Paul Amato and Alan Booth found that divorces fall into a couple categories: Two-thirds are unhappy, but low-conflict marriages. The other third are high-conflict, “war zone” partnerships.  In these war zone marriages children benifit from a divorce.  In the two-thirds catoraogy it is the children who end up paying the heavest cost of divorce.  This outcome was supported by Elizabeth Marquardt in her 2005 book, Between Two Worlds—the Inner Lives of Children of Divorce.

You can read more about this here.

After having six children, all 8 and under, we have spent the last 8 years usually with at least one child slipping into bed with us sometime throughout the night. As you can imagine, this has brought some awkward moments. But, the awkward moments are nothing compared to some of the bad moments we have had with perfectly healthy children.

Just this week, we had the fun and delightful opportunity to have a well child in our bed. Things were going well. My beloved wife only had one or two sleeping arm punches to her face in the middle of the night morning. While I, on the other side, had only been treated to the donkey kicks of a peacefully perpendicular sleeping child a few times of my own. All in all, a normal night for an insane family with six kids.

Then it happened. While my wife was sleeping and dreaming of an easy swim in the warm Caribbean waters, she realized that the water was a little warm even for the tropics. At this moment, she realized our slumber saboteur had gone to bed without a pull-up on. After all, he was a big boy of three now.

Sure we could have thought how terrible it has been that after 8 years we still can not get a decent night’s sleep. And, I’m sure in the moment we were both ready for heads to roll as we changed the sheets at two in the morning. But, by the time the next morning arrived with yet another child having snuck in, we were only too delighted to be able to be close to one of the ones we love. Somewhere along the line, we learned to treasure any time with a child, who can only find “alone” time with mom and dad while they sleep.

Developing family time is critical to a happy family; a happy marriage for that matter.  Dr.  Doherty calls this developing a family ritual.  For your activity to qualify as a family ritual you must do it regularly and it must have meaning.

Going for a family walk has become one of my family rituals.  Yesterday we walked to the park and back.  A few of my children and I stayed back and played on the swings and we hit the volleyball around.  As we spent time together my children talked about their friends and what they wanted to accomplish.

My wife and I also often go walking right before bedtime.  This is time my wife and I spend dicussing issues.  Women you may want to consider taking your guy for a walk.  Men tend to open up and experince intimancy while doing physical activities.  If “talking” is not working out too well, try going for a walk.

Our sixth and final child was certainly a surprise.  Five kids was our perfect plan.  After all, if you’re going to count your children, it just seems natural to only have to use one hand in the process.  In our minds, we had kind of met our quota.  Five kids were enough for any family and certainly enough for the financial budget of the Shaw Clan.  We had spent every moment of the previous seven years with at least one of us holding a child in our arms and we were ready to finally be done. 
 
As Landon, our youngest, month after month older, we would find ourselves counting down:  only three more months til’ no more bottles, only two more months of baby food,  only one more month until we have a sex life again!  Then the shocker happened.  My wife became pregnant with our sixth. 
 
Sex life out the window again!
 
We were distraught to say the least.  We had plans!  We went through all of the stages of grief: anger, denial, milkshakes, crying with Oprah, ect.  My perfect starting five for the b-ball team was now going to have a substitute. 
 
Then Sullivan came and something unexpected happened.  Before we found out about Sullivan, we assumed we could just wait three months for the next bit of precious freedom to be returned to Mom and Dad.  After Sullivan arrived, we assumed we could no longer assume anything.  It is the assumption of complete and utter chaos. 
 
The good news is that it is just then, as all hope of a predictable future is lost, when the most wonderful gift of an unexpected child finally arrives.  That gift is the realization that you are given the choice to either be miserable every moment, never knowing when the next reprieve will come, or to accept that the reprieve may never come and instead enjoy all of the glorious seconds in between.

Insulin Pump

Many of our listeners and frequent blog readers know that my middle son has type one diabetes. It is amazing how many applications the treatment of type one has to marriage and parenting issues. For example: without insulin sugar builds in the blood causing it to become toxic to the body. Conflict in a family, without ways to release the conflict, builds to toxic levels in the home. Also, if there is too much or too little neurotransmitters in the neurons you can get depression or mania.

On Friday I went to the Utah Counsel on Family Relations conference to get some CEU’s. A group of BYU students are doing a set of studies about the affects of a type one DX for children on their parents.

They looked at post DX stress and depression scores for both mom and dad and rated stress levels. They also looked at marital conflict after DX. They found that mom’s had more stress with a son DX than a daughter DX. Dad’s stress scores where not affected that way. They also noted that marital stress had an impact on the care of treatment.

I wondered if their was enough interest in marriage and parenting help for parents with type one children to add a section to this website. I some times post to a forum at www.childrenwithdiabetes.com. I have invited those that read and post there to come and view this site and add their comments to our discussions.

So welcome www.childrenwithdiabetes.com users and please post comments about the need for advice within our community and topics you would like to see.

]]> http://www.lovingmarriagelovingfamily.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=69 http://www.lovingmarriagelovingfamily.com/blog/?p=57 http://www.lovingmarriagelovingfamily.com/blog/?p=57#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:45:43 +0000 Aaron http://www.lovingmarriagelovingfamily.com/blog/?p=57

When I was a kid and then through my teenage years, one of my greatest loves was creating objects out of wood.  I would spend hours crafting something as simple as a bird house or as complex as a replica of Tara from Gone With the Wind.  Then one day, my passion for sculpting wood all but stopped.  I became interested in other things and never looked back … until this year.

This year was my first attempt at the hellacious competition known in devilish cub scouting circles as the Pinewood Derby.  Having two 8 year old twins, I was able to craft the perfect wooden hot rod in just one day, and then make all of the same parenting mistakes the very next day.  At first I thought, “Well, I can help with this a little, but largely I will simply give advice.”

Once we began working on the cars, I quickly heard the old call of the wood.  Soon enough, my poor 8 year old twins could not pry the block of pine from my grip.
Words like “Dad, can I have a turn,” and “I am suffering from dehydration,” no longer registered in my obsessed mind.  Crafting the perfect car of which my boys would be proud, and sealing my reputation as the world’s finest undiscovered wood working talent were all that mattered.

Often times a simple child’s project can becomes a parent’s passion.  Unfortunately, when this happens, all hope of the child learning something in the process is lost.  One of the difficulties in life as a parent is the art of helping our children without rescuing them. Too often we don’t like seeing our own child suffer.  So, in an effort to relieve our own anxieties and insecurities, we relieve our child of the growth that comes with making a completely awful, screwed up, ugly car made of pine wood.