Monthly Archive for March, 2012

The PO2 Weekly Top 5 Stories

Posted on March 30, 2012 in categories: Divorce, Marriage and Kids, Marriage in the News and Marriage Prep/Engagement. 0 Comments

Helping Adult Children With Parental Alienation Syndrome

Researchers have found that when one parent alienates a child from another

parent in a divorce, parental alienation syndrome can occur, resulting

in lower achievement in adulthood, impaired relationships, and low self-esteem….

From http://www.goodtherapy.org/

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13 Sources of Inspiration When Life has You Down

Post written by Blended Family columnist Melissa Gorzelanczyk of Peace & Projects.

The highs and lows of life can feel like a roller coaster. You’ve probably experienced a day that starts out smooth, but quickly hurtles

to the bottom when a family member is cranky or stubborn or decides…

From http://www.simplemarriage.net/

Autism and the Big Heart

by Brenda

A game of toy bowling at home has gone awry and Jack is in tears.
Really, he’s tired and hungry. Though he doesn’t think he’s either.

When I say he is, it makes him angry. I understand. It would make me angry if someone said that to me while I was upset…

From http://mamabegood.blogspot.com/

Before The Engagement: 7 Things Single People Should Know About Marriage

by Nicole Taylor

So you want to get married? Are you completely sure about that? Have you prepared yourself for what marriage entails? If you have …

From http://blackandmarriedwithkids.com/

How To Teach People Not To Marry The Wrong Person

by Pauline Gains

Using symbols to denote genders, marriage, divorce, adoption, and

relationship styles, people can map out their family’s multigenerational transmission process through an exercise known as a genogram…

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/divorce/

Categories: Divorce, Marriage and Kids, Marriage in the News and Marriage Prep/Engagement

Teaching the skills for saving a relationship-in high school

Posted on March 29, 2012 in categories: As seen on Huffington Post, Divorce, Marriage in the News, Marriage Prep/Engagement and Naomi. 3 Comments

Last November I wrote about the Divorce Reform Coalition. The aim of this movement is to revamp our no-fault divorce laws. Before divorcing, couples would be required to undergo marriage counseling (funded by the state) and wait for an 8-month “cooling off” period. This is in hopes of saving a relationship that doesn’t have any major dangers and could benefit from therapy. The movement has been picking up steam lately, and publicity.

Last week, Huffington Post contributor Pauline Gains wrote an article criticizing the Divorce Reform Movement’s proposal. Gains’ complaint is that mandating therapy won’t do any good in saving a relationship that is done for.

To [mandatory counseling], I say: Really? Making it harder to divorce will convince those who have fallen head over heels with the secretary, who can’t agree on anything, or who are just plain incompatible, that they should stay married?

And to that argument, I say: You’re right. There are some situations where a couple is better off divorced (read “should I get a divorce?” to find out more). Some relationships are, for better of for worse, over. Counseling will not make these people love each other again, stop abusing each other, or repair the deep emotional wounds that have broken their union.

Gains’ mistake is that these marriages are not the ones that marriage reform advocates are targeting. In fact, extreme and irreconcilable marital problems make up only a small fraction of all reported reasons for divorce.

It’s the little things that make a great marriage, and it’s the little things that are the leading cause of divorce. The most commonly cited reasons for divorce are: lack of communication, difficulty resolving conflicts, feeling distant or “out of love”, and disagreement over finances. Of course when you’re marriage is experiencing these problems, it can feel like it’s the end. At the same time, all these issues have the potential to be resolved via counseling.

Contrary to Gains’ belief, saving a relationship is possible in most situations. You can learn the skills to communicate, increase positivity and make mutually satisfying decisions. This is the foundation for Power of Two online program. It’s supported by numerous studies and years of data that show counseling has a significant impact in marital happiness (a new study just came out Tuesday!).

Of course, instead of having to work on saving a relationship, it’s always better to learn solid marriage skills before you start having problems! In the second half of her article, Gains makes this very proposal: “Instead of trying to fix miserable marriages, why not try to teach people how not to be miserably married in the first place?” She proposes that all high school students take a course in Family Systems as a graduation requirement. Family Systems is a college class taught by psychiatrist and family therapist Murray Bowen. The ideal curriculum would teach students psychology of relationships, problem-solving and common pitfalls, and how to navigate their own thoughts and feelings with those of others.

I think this is a great idea. We teach elementary students “life skills” classes where they learn how to be active listeners, share and get along with each other. The goal is to prepare them to be functional members of their class. Why does this formal social education end there? Childhood through teenagerdom is where we learn the foundations of how to interact with others. Teaching a course on psychology, relationships, conflict resolution and emotional intelligence would be invaluable for young adults for all their future relationships, romantic and otherwise.

I think we should take this idea very seriously. What do you think?

Categories: As seen on Huffington Post, Divorce, Marriage in the News, Marriage Prep/Engagement and Naomi

Should I get a divorce? 5 reasons to go and 5 reasons to stay.

Posted on March 22, 2012 in categories: Depression, Expert Advice from Dr. Heitler, Infidelity, Intimacy, Marriage Q&A, Naomi and Positivity. 2 Comments

Have you ever wondered, “Should I get a divorce?” Sometimes it’s hard to tell if your marriage problems spell doom for your union, or, if it is possible—and worth it—to salvage your marriage. Power of Two is founded on the principle that most divorces can be prevented by learning the skills for strong, healthy marriages. At the same time, some relationships have toxic and dangerous elements that make divorce the best option for everyone involved. These behaviors can be hard to face, and they should never be ignored.

The following are Dr. Heitler’s “Top Five reasons to Divorce”:

Your spouse is controlling. He/she attempts to manipulate you and/or control your friends, activity, behavior or money by the use of threats, put-downs, criticism, excessive guilt or anger.
Your spouse has cheated repeatedly. One infidelity does not necessarily spell doom—with lots of work, your marriage can recover and be stronger than ever. However, repeated affairs mean your spouse unlikely to change his ways no matter what.
There are unaddressed addictions. You should consider leaving if your spouse has damaging problems with gambling, drugs, alcohol, or other behavior and refuses or continues to avoid getting treatment.
There is an unaddressed mental disorder. Many couples live with mental disorders and have strong marriages. At the same time, if your spouse refuses to get treatment for a damaging or dangerous disorder, you should consider ending your marriage. It is the best for both of you.
Your spouse is violent with you or others, or mistreats children. This is the most resounding “YES” to the question “Should I get a divorce?” Remove yourself and your children from this situation immediately and seek professional help.

The good news is the most common reasons for divorce these days are not the ones above—and this means they are fixable!

“Should I get a divorce?…“ Consider couples counseling over divorce if the following sounds like you:

We just don’t communicate very well and can’t seem to resolve our conflicts. Communication and conflict resolution difficulties are the most common complaints of divorcing couples. Luckily, they are also simplest to change. You can learn the skills to handle these problems at any time and they will help you in all areas of life, from your spouse to in-laws to the office.
I just don’t love him anymore. Love is a cornerstone of marriage and feeling “out of love” can be frustrating and confusing. At the same time, the quality of love is constantly changing; sometimes hot and passionate, other times a cool, subtle bond. Do you really not love each other at all? Passion, intimacy and positivity can be revived!
Because it’ll be better for the kids. It’s true that having fighting parents is hard on kids. At the same time, so is divorce. Also, if you keep fighting while you’re divorced, it’s still bad. The solution? Learn to stop the fighting. Marriage education can help you replace your arguments with positive dialogue and win-win problem solving!
He/she’s just not the same person I married. We all change and grow as we go through life together. What’s important is knowing how to support each other on our personal journeys. Counseling can teach couples how to turn differences into powerful tools instead of a source of marriage problems.
I don’t trust him/her anymore. He lied and made a stupid deal, she gambled or cheated… Sometimes people do make mistakes. At the same time, most mistakes are repairable. Get the skills to analyze your errors and prevent future repeats. Sometimes the sourer the lemon, the sweeter the lemonade.

In the old days, and in many places still, divorce is a difficult, lengthy process that is highly stigmatized. This has the potential to trap spouses, especially women, into dangerous and unhappy marriages that fall into the category of good reasons to divorce, listed above. So, in many ways, it’s a good thing that we can quickly leave marriages we are uncomfortable in.

At the same time, this gives us the responsibility to think about our choices very carefully. And I don’t mean to imply that anyone takes divorce lightly! It’s just that marriage isn’t easy, and divorce is not necessarily the answer to your marriage problems. Consider this: If you don’t learn the skills for a healthy relationship now, you are likely to find yourself in the same situation with simply a different person in the future.

If you feel your marriage getting rocky, don’t hesitate to talk to a therapist or try a program like Power of Two. Problems are solved most easily when they’re caught early. And it certainly never hurts!

From an interview with Dr. Heitler, 10/11

Categories: Depression, Expert Advice from Dr. Heitler, Infidelity, Intimacy, Marriage Q&A, Naomi and Positivity

The 25 best funny marriage quotes

Posted on March 20, 2012 in categories: Just For Fun, Marriage Prep/Engagement, Naomi, Positivity and Uncategorized. 9 Comments

Funny marriage quotes are great for all sorts of occasions, from making toasts to giving advice, to simply making us laugh. They also open our eyes to the essentials of things like communication in marriage and balancing individual desires with your spouse’s needs. Talking about marriage and love is as old as…well, talking! So there’s lots of good material out there.

If you follow @po2marriage on twitter you probably know I love to tweet funny marriage quotes. They tend to get to the heart of marriage problems and blessings in only 140 characters. One thing I’ve noticed while researching quotes for sharing is that there are a lot of really bad funny marriage quotes. I mean quotes that get their humor from playing on stereotypes and bad assumptions about married life, in-laws, wives, children and husbands. When we retell these jokes and quotes, we subtly reenforce the logic behind them-logic that is actually destructive to marriage. Take this quote, for example:

Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.

There are a lot of quotes and jokes like this out there. They are funny, but negative. They all have the same message: that marriage is the end of any happiness you have, that it is endless and inevitable suffering and that smart people don’t get married. In this way, a disturbing worldview is embedded in these jokes. Mindset is a large predictor of what will indeed happen in your life (Dr. Heitler wrote a great article about it). Sometimes I wonder if our high divorce rate is partly due to these negative expectations-they becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you are choosing some funny marriage quotes to say during a wedding toast, stay away from these kinds of jokes. Not because the bride and groom will take them seriously and be offended, or because they aren’t funny (the “suffer-ring” line is clever!); but because the best wedding gift you can give the couple is a message of a positive and loving future.

Here are my top 25 funny marriage quotes and wedding sayings (not ranked):

“A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendships, all the enjoyment of sense and reason - and indeed all the sweets of life.” ~ Joseph Addison
“A happy man marries the girl he loves; a happier man loves the girl he marries.” ~ anonymous
“You don’t need to be on the same wavelength to succeed in marriage. You just need to be able to ride each other’s waves.” ~ Toni Sciarra Poynter
“Spouse: someone who’ll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn’t have had if you’d stayed single.” ~ Anonymous
“We don’t love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.” ~ Jacques Maritain
“Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” - Samuel Johnson
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, and always with the same person.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin
“The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly.” ~Peter De Vries
“To keep the fire burning brightly there’s one easy rule: Keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart - about a finger’s breadth - for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule.” ~Marnie Reed Crowell
“A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes superfluous.” ~ Ingrid Bergmen
“Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.” ~Simone Signoret
“A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.” ~ Anne Taylor Fleming
“Woke up in bed with a gorgeous woman, who I’m going to have lunch and the rest of my life with.” ~ Jason Barmer
“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” ~ Albert Einstein
“One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.” ~ Judith Viorst
“In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.” ~ Robert Anderson, Solitaire & Double Solitaire
“In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the opposite: it begins all.” ~ Anne Sophie Swetchine
“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” ~ Paul Sweeney
“Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage.” ~ Finnish Proverb
“A dress that zips up the back will bring a husband and wife together.” ~ James H. Boren
“Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” ~ Mark Twain
“Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day.” ~ Gene Perret
“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.” ~ Andre Maurois
“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” ~ Martin Luther
“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love.” ~ Robert Fulghum, True Love

How is your marriage doing? Take this quiz to find out where you stand strong and what needs work. You may be surprised! Take the quiz now.

Categories: Just For Fun, Marriage Prep/Engagement, Naomi, Positivity and Uncategorized

Can we predict celebrity divorces? These guys think they can.

Posted on March 14, 2012 in categories: Just For Fun, Marriage in the News and Naomi. 0 Comments

In 2006, John Tierney and Garth Sundem-science, math and culture writers and self described “geeks”-published an equation for predicting celebrity divorces. They created a complex statistical model based on variables such as relative fame of wife and husband, age, length of dating, and sex-symbol factor.

Now with five years of data, they can evaluate and refine their equation. And it’s pretty spot on. So far, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher; Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock; and Brittany Spears and Kevin Federline have all divorced as predicted. The equation also foretold the demise of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, but they are still married. The two cute couples who were predicted to make it through have: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garnder, and Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso.

So how have the authors adjusted their equation? The original formula was overly pessimistic in certain predictions of celebrity divorces. It gave Ashton and Demi half the time it took them to divorce, and predicted that Katie Holms and Tom Cruise would be over (they’re not). It turns out that factoring in overall celebrity wasn’t enough. The equation had to take into account the type of celebrity: positive or negative. The authors did so by dividing number of mentions in the New York Times by mentions in The National Enquirer.

The new equation is made of this variable plus the couple’s combined age (younger couples have a radically higher chance of divorce), length of courtship (short courtship=quicker divorce), and sex-symbol factor of the bride. They found that the husband’s notoriety doesn’t matter as much as the wife’s, and the age gap between the two is unimportant.

Some of this seems like common sense, and other parts just bring up more questions. Why does the wife’s sex-symbol factor and tabloid reputation matter so much more? One possible answer lies in the fact that women initiate 70% of breakups. Also, the double standard of infidelity: a woman’s affair is statistically more likely to lead to marital breakup than if her husband is unfaithful. So tabloid infamy is an insight into the wife’s risky and wild behavior. The more unstable the women is, the more unstable the relationship is.

Check out the article for the full range of celebrity divorces predictions. In a way, the lack of a perfect model for divorce predicting is encouraging. It means that marriages can survive against all odds. No one is destined to divorce. I truly believe that learning solid relationship skills-whether with a $400 per hour celebrity counselor, or with online marriage counseling like Power of Two-is the key having a long, strong marriage, no matter who you are!

Categories: Just For Fun, Marriage in the News and Naomi

Laugh your way to a better marriage!

Posted on March 8, 2012 in categories: As seen on ABCnews.com, Marriage in the News, Naomi, Positivity and Power of Two in the News. 2 Comments

It turns out you really can laugh your way to a better marriage. A new study highlighted on abcNews.com reveals that relationships benefit when wives regularly let their husbands know when they are feeling happy. While open communication about problems is a key part of good marriage problem solving, it is equally important to let your spouse know when things are going well.

The findings “suggest that men may be more satisfied in their relationships when they can accurately read their partners’ positive emotions, while women’s relationship satisfaction may uniquely benefit when they can accurately read their partners’ negative emotions.” Both partners benefit when the other can accurately read their unhappiness or distress.

So why do women like to know when their husbands are unhappy and men like to know when their wives are happy? Dr. Heitler, who was interviewed for the article, believes that it has to do with the fact that most women get a feeling of satisfaction from nurturing and “fixing” emotional problems. Men tend to absorb the emotions of their spouse.

“We get a serotonin fix from it, a spurt of well-being from having been nurturing in that way,” said Heitler. ”On the other hand, men find that happiness in knowing their woman is happy. It goes with the saying, ‘happy wife, happy life.’”

These findings provide some food for thought about repairing marriages. Many couples seek out couples counseling because the joy in their marriage has withered. They believe that there are certain problems that, once worked through, will allow their marriage to blossom. While solving the cause negative emotions is important for marriage repair, consciously introducing more positive emotions is equally essential. Marriages are fixed by addition of the positive as well as subtraction of the negative. Expressing positivity is an important part of how to rekindle a relationship and you might even laugh your way to a better marriage. Let your spouse know when things are working-that happiness will provide fuel for your relationship to grow.

Read the whole article at abcNews.com

Categories: As seen on ABCnews.com, Marriage in the News, Naomi, Positivity and Power of Two in the News

The funny side of problems in marriage

Posted on March 5, 2012 in categories: Just For Fun, Marriage in the News, Marriage Prep/Engagement, Media Mondays and Naomi. 2 Comments

Author Jenna McCarthy takes a humorous look at the unrealistic expectations of marriage in this funny and smart TED talk. It’s important to step back once and a while and look at the funny side of the problems in marriage. What are we really promising in those well worn oaths?

The big day comes, and they’ll stand before God and family, and some guy her dad once did business with, and they’ll vow that nothing, not abject poverty, not life-threatening illness, not complete and utter misery, will ever put the tiniest damper on their eternal love and devotion.

Hearing it like that, you realize that this is some pretty far-fetched promise, especially in thelight of America’s nearly %50 divorce rate. The truth is, every single married couple faces problems in marriage. Life goes by with its successes and challenges and this puts stresses on us and affects all our relationships. In addition, through the years you spend together-the rest of your lives-you will change and grow as a person. You will find new interests and hobbies, your way of looking at life may change.

How can your relationship last through this and the problems in marriage it brings? Perhaps by making a new kind of promise. To be partners in life, helping each other to navigate its twists and turns, respecting and trusting each other while you grow. Recognize that love will be of changing qualities-at times fierce and warming, and at others a cool undercurrent. I believe that with open dialogue about the real difficulties, and less stressing expectations, is part of the path to longer, stronger marriages.

Have fun with this video. Jenna is a great speaker, and she ends with a positive note in spite of all her funny marriage problems griping!

Categories: Just For Fun, Marriage in the News, Marriage Prep/Engagement, Media Mondays and Naomi