August 11, 2010 – The first major study to compare religion and relationship quality across America’s major racial and ethnic groups finds that for all groups, shared religious activity – attending church together and especially praying together – is linked to higher levels of relationship quality. African-Americans derive the most benefits from that connection because they are significantly more likely than whites or Latinos to pray together and attend church together, offsetting other socioeconomic factors tied to lower relationship quality – a finding dubbed the “African-American religion-marriage paradox,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. For more, go to press release: www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=12551
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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.
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 In this clip John starts to introduce his seven principles for making marriage work and the four horseman that tear marriages apart. The four horseman are 1) criticisms, 2) contempt 3) defensiveness and 4) stonewalling. Seven PrinciplesIn 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.
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 RecessionDecember 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.
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.
 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.
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Love Lessons from the Smart Marriages® Conference (This is a reprint from the smart 
H. Wallace Goddard, Ph.D. works for the University of 
This is a difficult question for couples who are considering divorce to answer. Most couples who have divorced report that they wish they had slowed things down a bit and considered their options. Dr Doherty says that his occurs because “You start to tell the other person to change, and the biggest thing is to tell them to change in ways they can’t change, like do a personality overhaul,” explained Doherty. “They become more defensive and withdraw, you have more conflict and in a year or two, you can kill a marriage that was reasonably good.”
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.
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