It hardly seems possible that it is November, and I haven’t posted since mid-September! The dust is settling, and the Online Marriage Workshop is over (Transform Your Marriage).

Well, a new project is underway. Podcasts are excellent ways of getting information, and in a format that is quick and easy. I am offering Podcasts for people working on their marriage. You can find it at Marriage Moment.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

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It is mid-morning on 9/11/06. As I sit in front of my computer, I am listening to the reports commemorating this day, 5 years ago. I remember where I was then.

I had arrived at my office, a full day of appointments scheduled. But a small group was also in the building. We gathered around a TV with very poor reception. No cable, and an antenna was not helping. But through “snow” and lines, we watched in horror as the second plane struck. We began to realize that this was not a mistake. Something else was going on. The story unfolded over the next days.

5 years have passed, and I ask: what has changed for you?

For me, I have been through a serious illness, several trips, and a serious reassessment of my life. I am in better shape than ever in my life, and I know where I want to go.

I am aware that in the aftermath of the attack, many people asked the question: what is my life about? What am I doing that is important and meaningful? Many people examined their lives, vowed to make changes, and some did. But many made vows that have fallen away. People promised to love like they never had before. People vowed to find jobs of significance. Some started relationships, others renewed relationships, and still others ended relationships.

What came to the surface to me was that anyone could make a life more meaningful, more full, without leaving a job or a relationship. In fact, sometimes, the way to transformation is through the difficulty, not by avoiding it.

And now, we arrive at one of my pet-peeves. I am convinced that we, in this society, have so much bought into the “pursuit of happiness” that we have cheapened what happiness is and tried to find shortcuts to it. Mostly, I think happiness has become the latest thrill, the newest product, the excitement of being self-centered. So, we ask “what will make me happy?” We don’t ask “what do I need to do to make a life of significance, to honor my integrity, and to find purpose?” That is the path to happiness.

This society has made relationships disposable. So, whenever I feel the relationship is not meeting my needs, I dispose of it. That tends to be our approach to everything, isn’t it? My latest toy isn’t working for me, off to the landfill. Soon, we have full landfills, too few resources, and a real crisis on our hands.

It is no different with relationships. Disposing of relationships leaves us without having to work through them. It also leaves horrible scars and patterns in our lives, and the lives of others (family, children, and society).

One of the lessons in the aftermath of 9/11 is that life can be taken in an instant. Physical possessions can be stolen in a moment. But love sustains us. Connection is our lifeblood, but only when we move through it and honor our relationships and commitments.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

9/11 marriage help

I’m probably running on 3/4’s steam right now! I almost forgot to tell you about the **Free Report** I just released. It is entitled “5 Myths Of Marriage.” The content is about the stories we tell about marriage that are not true, but are very damaging. These myths can hurt a healthy marriage and destroy a marriage in trouble. (Just for a bonus, I added two “fibs” to the report.) Don’t miss it. You can find it by going HERE.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

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It has been a little time since I have posted. Lots has been going on. In fact, that is the reason for the delay!

I was on vacation at the end of July, first of August. And as usual, my mind was still whirling. I was thinking about the effects of the ebook and my Relationship Coaching. It occured to me that many people need more than an ebook could provide, but don’t really want to start the coaching (and my hours are quite limited there). But I wanted to find some way of helping even more marriages. I was wracking my brain. . .

Then, rinsing off after a day at the beach, it hit me: why not do a “virtual” marriage seminar? I mean, the technology doesn’t require that much, so people all over the world could be involved.

So, I came back to work (?? did I ever leave ??) and started making plans. You can find the beginnings of that at www.TransformYourMarriage.com.

Go take a look, and let me know what you think!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

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An ebook wasn’t enough. It was just not possible to cover all the bases. So, I tried to think of what to do to save even more marriages. Now, I think we have the best solution. We now offer the Save The Marriage I-Pac. My idea is that an I-Pac is an Informational Package. It is the complete solution!

First, we started with the ebook. After all, it has been effective for more than 41,000 couples. But we went several steps further. I added a special document, the Top 5 Mistakes. This document describes the 5 most common mistakes people make when a spouse wants out of a marriage.

Understand, these mistakes can make the difference between a marriage that can be salvaged, and one that is lost. Not huge mistakes, but a misstep at the wrong time, and you lose too much ground.

That still wasn’t enough, so we added another important document: The Quick-Start Guide. This guide will quickly get people on the path to saving their marriage. It helps someone assess where the relationship is (there are 8 stages outlined), and what to do to turn each stage around. Each stage requires a different approach, and this document shows the path.

I’m very excited about this information! I’ve used it with some consultation clients, and have been blown away with the results! I think this provides a whole other layer of effectiveness.

Then, to tie it all together, I have decided that for the time being, each person who purchases the I-Pac will receive an email consultation with me. Ask a question, get a direct response. Until I am overwhelmed with the emails, I’ll keep this up.

I think the email consultation has the capacity of tying it all together, since it allows each person to take the material and apply it to the particulars of his or her marriage. Information, carefully targeted, and we will save even more marriages!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Marriage Advice Marital Advice

OK, every now and then, I write in response to people who email me. It is usually after I hear the same question over and over in a short amount of time. Today is one of those days. In fact, just this morning, I heard from someone with whom I have offered consultation. She stated that her husband’s feelings had changed for her, and she knew that meant that she needed to move on.

I strongly disagreed with her perspective. This idea that “I am not in love with you anymore” means the marriage is over, is one of the most destructive myths of marriage. It is inaccurate and unfair to reality.

You see, when most people marry, they promise to love and cherish each other. Unless they did a major re-write of their marriage vows, they did not promise to be “in love” with each other the rest of their lives. But then, when the feeling isn’t there, that is the promise they seem to fall back on.

Love is an action verb. That is what the promise is about. In essence, the vow is “I promise to act in loving ways toward you and to treat you as something I cherish, I treat you as a treasure.” Now that captures the essence of marriage!

Emotions and feelings come and go, sometimes completely out of our control. But the choice, the promise to act loving, that is a different matter. I can make a conscious choice to act loving, even if I don’t have feelings prompting me. When people begin to orient their marriage around being loving and treasuring the other, as a conscious choice, the feelings of being in love will follow.

My guess is that the divorce rate would drop drastically if we could change that one single myth. Marriage is about choosing to love someone, not being blown around by fickle emotions.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Marital Advice Marriage Advice

People often ask me: why do we have so many problems in marriage? From my perspective, it seems that a great deal of the problem comes from two directions.

1) We are raised to take care of ourselves. We are raised to be independent people, unaffected by those around us. Sometimes, the training doesn’t work, and we become people desperate for connection. We live at the extremes: independence or over-dependence. The best advice for marriages is interdependence. Relationships are helped when people are interdependent. In other words, both bring something to the table and add to the other, while still being distinct.

2) Culture plays against marriage. Listen to the songs, watch the TV and movies. We are surrounded by poor images of marriage. In fact, the dominant theme is having affairs and having casual sex. Neither are very healthy and helpful for marriage.

So, the roots are there, and then exacerbated by what we bring to the table. Marriage advice wants to make it some deep fault of each individual, but that is just the flavoring on the steak, not the meat of the issue.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

One of the most interesting aspects of my work is that I constantly see people responding to hurt. It is interesting to me that the majority of people always assign maliciousness to an action by someone else. On the other hand, people usually readily see the self-protective nature of their own actions. Social psychologists call this the “attribution error.” We see the other’s action as character flaw, and our actions as mistakes.

I find it important that individuals work to see that there are very few people who are actually malicious. The chances of being married to one are fairly low. But the chances are good that seemingly malicious actions are really rooted in self-protection. When we are hurt, we lash out. The lashing out may feel malicious to the other, much like what we were lashing out against: seemingly malicious actions.

This truth applies to parenting, also. When we are able to view our child’s actions as response to hurt, this requires a different response than when we assume it is from maliciousness. A two year-old is pitching a fit because he or she wants something or is threatened by something, not because he or she is mean.

A teenager may say attacking words, but they are often retaliatory in nature. They may be trying to establish a “self-hood” that they think is being threatened (curfews, groundings, and anything else that reigns in freedom), or may feel slighted. The words coming out may be malicious, but that does not mean the person is malicious.

My daughter loves the bumper sticker that quotes Ghandi: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. . . leaves the world blind and toothless.” What would happen in relationships if we worked from an assumption that the attack from another comes from hurt and pain, not mean-ness? What would happen if we worked from a point of forgiveness? After all, if the person is seen as hurt and in pain, it is much easier to offer forgiveness and understanding.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

My daughter was recently in her school’s performance of Fiddler On The Roof. She was one of the daughters. If you don’t know the story, it focuses on the changing culture of marriage, from one where the marriage is arrainged by family and community to one based on mutual attraction.

In one of the songs, the main character asks his wife if she loves him. She replies that for 25 years, she has shared his bed, made his meals, tended his house, raised his children — so what kind of question is that? The point is, love wasn’t even a question or consideration. But after some back-and-forth, they decide that, indeed, they love each other.

This led me to think about what I know about marriage. And here is what I think about the question of love: we fall in love to get together, then spend the rest of our lives learning to love the other.

You see, the initial attraction is really about “I.” I feel a certain way, so I know I am “in love.” But it is driven by my need to feel that way, my need to be with the other person, my need to have my needs met.

But love is a verb, something I do for the other. So, it takes the rest of my life to learn how to attend to my spouse’s needs. From my desire to be with my spouse comes my desire to meet my spouse’s love needs.

We are “fooled” into commitment by the overwhelming feeling of attraction, then we have to put forth effort to create a sustained relationship. I say “fooled” because our culture has us believeing that this love is the foundation of a relationship. It is not. It is merely a temporary starting point.

My feelings will calm over time. The overwhelming need to be with someone that marks the infatuation portion of a relationship is not sustainable on its own. It’s like placing a flame in a bottle. Eventually, the flame will burn all the oxygen in the bottle and be extinguished.

So, there has to be some “fueling of the fire.” This is “love,” the verb. When I act in loving ways, I fuel the fire, keep it burning. If I stop tending to the other’s needs because I don’t feel that infatuation, the relationship will slowly (or not so slowly) die away.

When we keep believing that “love” (infatuation) is the heart of a relationship, when that feeling is gone, we believe we are no longer in love. That is not the case; we have just failed to fuel the fire.

Reality TV has proven that any two people, given the right circumstances and settings, can fall into love (chemistry of infatuation). But story after story shows that it is harder to make the switch to “true love” that comes from action. Choose action, and don’t be fooled by chemistry.